About an hour before every concert, Bruce Springsteen draws up a set list of 31 songs, written in big, scrawly letters in marker ink and soon thereafter distributed to his musicians and crew in typed-up, printed-out form. But this list is really just a loose framework. Over the course of an evening, Springsteen might shake up the order, drop a song, call a few audibles to his seasoned, ready-for-anything E Street Band, or take a request or two from fans holding handwritten signs in the pit near the front of the stage. Or he might do all of the above and then some—as he did on the first of the two nights that I saw him perform in Gothenburg, Sweden, this summer.
That night, at the last minute, Springsteen jettisoned his plan to open with a full-band version of “Prove It All Night,” from his 1978 album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, and instead began the show solo at the piano with “The Promise,” a fan-beloved Darkness outtake. Eight songs in, he again went off-list, playing a stretched-out, gospelized version of “Spirit in the Night,” from his first album, 1973’s Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., which he followed with “Save My Love,” a sign request. Onward he went with tweaks and spontaneous additions, to the point where, by the time the show was over, it was past midnight and Springsteen, a man approaching his 67th birthday, had played for nearly four hours—his second-longest concert ever.
“Yikes!” said Springsteen with mock alarm when I relayed this fact to him the next day, at his hotel in the Swedish port city. “I’m always in search of something, in search of losing myself to the music. I think we hit a spot last night where I was trying some songs we hadn’t played in a while, where maybe you’re struggling more. And then suddenly”—he snapped his fingers—“you catch it, and then, once you do, you may not want to stop.”
“You have to create the show anew, and find it anew, on a nightly basis,” Springsteen said. “And sometimes,” he concluded, laughing, “it takes me longer than I thought it would.”
~ David Camp, The Book of Bruce Springsteen
Notes:
- Don’t miss full cover story at Vanity Fair.
- Pre-Order Springsteen’s new book (delivered 9/27/16) at Amazon.
Live & Learn 
Still The Boss.
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‘BRUCE’!!!!! Where the heck is the love button?❤️
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Bang on LIKE button 10x and it pops up.
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They don’t make ’em like that anymore. I can just imagine Justin Bieber playing ‘off-script’ for four hours…snort.
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Laughing. Esp at the snort. So great.
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Bieber who?
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Bieber who?
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Ha. Like that.
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he is someone i’ve never seen live and would still love to see live. he is creating an experience live and right in front of the audience, like a painter, painting while we watch.
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Oh so me too Beth
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He’s the epitome of cool. (Do people even say cool anymore?)
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Cool works.
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So ashamed to say I might have not heard any of his songs. My generation and the time we immigrated, one foot here, the other still there. ..
Might know of a couple of his songs not knowing it’s him.
Admire his approach, a life lesson to almost everything, absolutely everything,
“You have to create the show anew, and find it anew, on a nightly basis,” Springsteen said. “And sometimes,” he concluded, laughing, “it takes me longer than I thought it would.”
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Wow. No further comment.
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He is brilliant. His creativity comes from both light and darkness, a powerful combination, and the very reason he is so adored.
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He is amazing. Agree with your light and dark characterization. On point.
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That’s kinda like me and writing. And at 63, I need a little more come-down time than I did in my younger days — and a little more get-up time, too!
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So me too!
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So talented. And let us not forget HANDSOME!
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Ha.
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His auto-biography just came out this year.
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Yes. It’s on my short list to read. Thanks for stopping by.
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