1966: The Castiles play a teen dance at the Harris Gardens Firehouse in Union Beach, New Jersey.
1974: Bruce records the final take of his signature song, “Born to Run."
1976: Bruce and the E Street Band play their fifth of a six-night stand at the Monmouth Arts Center in Red Bank.
1981: On their day off during their three-night stand in Washington, DC, Bruce, Garry, and Clarence join former Steel Mill bandmate Robbin Thompson’s band on stage at the Bayou Club, where they play “Carol."
1982: Bruce joins Beaver Brown on stage at Big Man’s West in Red Bank for four songs, including “Jersey Girl."
1984: At Night Two of ten at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford on the Born in the U.S.A. Tour, “Spirit in the Night” makes its tour debut, and “No Surrender” is played in its third arrangement of the tour. This one will stick, and this specific performance (along with “Nebraska” from this show) will appear on the Live 1975-85 box set. Additionally Bruce’s performance of “Trapped” from this show will be released the following year on the We Are the World album, as well as on The Essential Bruce Springsteen in 2003. The entire show is available as part of Bruce’s official archive series.
1992: It’s Night Nine of eleven at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford on World Tour 1992. Bruce dedicates “Human Touch” to Jeff Porcaro of Toto, who played drums on most of the Human Touch album and who passed away the previous day. The official video for “Leap of Faith” is filmed at this show, and the audio is released on the CD single.
Also on this day, Entertainment Tonight airs a segment on Bruce’s new Rolling Stone cover story, on sale today. (If you have the Album Collection Volume 2, you have that cover story in your bonus book.)
1995: Bruce guest stars with Bobby Bandiera at Cheers in Long Branch, New Jersey.
1999: Bruce opens Night Eleven of the fifteen-night opening stand of the U.S. Reunion Tour in East Rutherford with the first full-band “Adam Raised a Cain” in eleven years. Bruce also tour premieres “Be True” and ends the show with “Thunder Road” — the first time Bruce has played an additional song after “Land of Hope and Dreams” on this tour.
2003: The Rising Stadium Tour heads to Pennsylvania for four shows, starting with a single night at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, where Joe and Johnny Grushecky make their (by now) customary appearance.
2005: At his solo acoustic show at the Fox Theater in St. Louis, Bruce plays “County Fair” for only the second (and final) time to date. Another surprise: the very first solo piano version of “Backstreets."
2015: Bruce and the E Street Band make a special appearance on The Daily Show to give departing host Jon Stewart his final Moment of Zen.
On this day in 2005, Bruce Springsteen solo at the Fox Theater, St Louis on the ‘Devils & Dust’ tour:
Amidst much cheering, Bruce walked onstage about 8:15. The Fox Theater was sold out, all 4,000 seats filled. Easily the most ornate theater I had ever been in, just a beautiful setting, every square inch decorated. I was maybe 15 feet from the microphone, prime seating to be sure. The stage was framed in plush red velvet drapes, 2 chandeliers overhead.
Dressed in blue jeans, a black shirt rolled up above his elbows and boots, Bruce looked fit and happy. Despite the grind of being on the road for months at a time, it appeared that performing live agreed with him.
He sat at the keyboard and opened with a rarity ‘Back in Your Arms’, then took out his harmonica and played ‘Reason to Believe’ in a funky, smoky delta blues style, keeping time with his boot pounding the stage. As he finished that, he strapped on his acoustic guitar and went right into ‘Devils & Dust’, the title track from his latest release. It was about this time that I felt the sides of my face hurting, and I realized it was from grinning non-stop!
Bruce continued to entertain us for the next two and a half hours, featuring songs from his new album and a mix of some of his older classics. He played piano, electric piano, harmonica, acoustic 6 and 12 string guitars and for a memorable performance of ‘Part Man, Part Monkey’ plugged in an electric guitar.
He was in a good mood, chatting with the crowd, sharing stories of his growing up, being raised Catholic, the trials and tribulations of being a parent of a teenager.
Early on he played ‘County Fair’, a perfect song for late summer. However, he botched one of the lines, stopped, went back to play it again and messed it up again. He laughed and said “Okay, how about I just skip that line”!
He played ‘The River’ on piano, then brought the house to its feet with a standing ovation for the first ever solo performance of ‘Backstreets’! As the crowd stood and cheered at the conclusion, Bruce stood up from the piano, put on his guitar, strode to the microphone while a floor level flood light came on behind him, framing him in the brightness. He then sang the opening lines “Can’t see nothin’ in front of me, can’t see nothin’ comin’ up behind” from ‘The Rising’. Lots of emotion in that song, played superbly.
The whole night was like that, just one amazing song after another with nary a break. He finished up, waved to the crowd and walked offstage to deafening applause and cheers. A few minutes later he walked back out for a 5-song encore while the entire crowd stood. One of the songs was the classic ‘The Promised Land’ but played in an entirely different style. Bruce strummed the chords, then used his thumb and fingers to keep a percussive beat going against the body of the acoustic guitar, hard to describe but done in a great way.
He finished off the night with a cover of the song ‘Dream Baby Dream’, played on pump organ. He got the organ to play on a loop, stood up and walked to the front of the stage and sang while the organ played behind him. Holding a microphone in one hand, waving the other hand back and forth in a mesmerizing rhythm, he swayed back and forth as he sang. He finished the song and walked offstage as the organ continued to play, a very satisfying finish.
When the house lights came up and the fans gave one final round of thunderous applause before heading out, I thought the night could not have been any better. We stood and talked while waiting for the crowd to thin out, the aisles were jammed. I turned and looked back into the wings of the stage and saw Bruce standing by himself, arms folded. I waved at him and he waved back, the perfect ending to a perfect night!