springsteen tour 1996

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Bruce Springsteen, Akron, Ohio September 25th, 1996

A One-Way Ticket To The Promised Land

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen, E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Center, Akron, OH, September 25, 1996

By Erik Flannigan

Those of us who like to discuss Bruce Springsteen’s touring history often focus on a show’s narrative arc. Through his setlist choices and order, what story is he telling?

Tours tied to his new studio albums often start as showcases for that particular work and its ideas, but after several months on the road song selections turn wide ranging, at times drifting far from the shore to which they were originally docked.

The Ghost of Tom Joad tour is Springsteen’s purest in terms of holding onto its vision and telling its story night after night. That the tour eventually spanned three calendar years stands as a testament to how satisfying Springsteen found solo work and the songs he was performing.

The tour launched in late 1995 and those early sets offered a heaping helping of tracks from the album. By the time he reached Akron ten months later–a point at which deviation from the norm would be underway on most tours–Springsteen was digging even deeper into this music’s wellspring.

Akron begins with a staggering debut performance that immediately validates the inclusion of the show in the Live Archive series. Springsteen had been invited to appear at a special Woody Guthrie tribute concert in Cleveland on September 29, in preparation for which he performed the folk legend’s “Tom Joad” to open the Akron set.

Preview of “Tom Joad” by Bruce Springsteen in Akron, OH 1996

With command and focus, Springsteen breathes new life into Guthrie’s murder ballad about the plight of the poor heading west in the Dust Bowl era. The song is a darker, spiritual companion to Springsteen’s own “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” and the two share key words and phrases in their final verses. While the film adaption of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was a major reference for Springsteen’s “Joad” lyrics, the inspiration and influence of Guthrie’s “Tom Joad” is there too, and not just in the title track but across the album, and even as far back as Nebraska , where its style and shape inform compositions like “Johnny 99” and “Reason to Believe.”

From that unprecedented start, Springsteen moves purposefully through the weighty Joad tour set, which offers little in the way of fan service but remains unquestionable in its musical artistry. The seventh song, “Nebraska,” starts with a high-vocal musical prelude that drifts into the somber harmonica line, setting the dark scene that’s about to unfold. It’s a stark, intimate reading that ends with Springsteen subtly shifting into a character voice for the harrowing final line: “I guess there’s just a meanness in this world.”

The first half of the set includes “It’s the Little Things That Count” and “Red Headed Woman,” which bring welcome levity, before the fitting pairing of “Shut Out the Light” and “Born in the U.S.A.” Springsteen performs the b-side with feeling and fragility, while the A-side rides bluesy guitar slides in a swaggering reading that plays more as a cautionary tale than ever before.

A second high-vocal intro comes ahead of another Nebraska track, “Reason to Believe,” missing its original and thematically contrasting musical lilt, replaced here by a somber tone that’s chilling in spots. No one will misread the meaning of this version.

The main set heads towards conclusion on the back of five stellar performances from Joad starting with “Youngstown” (just 50 miles from Akron), “Sinaloa Cowboys,” “The Line,” the rarely performed “The New Timer” and finally a glimmer of hope from “Across The Border.”

After delivering the set’s central themes completely on his own terms, Springsteen acknowledges the Akron audience’s patience and respect with the rousing return of “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?” The song dates back to his own time as a Greenwich Village troubadour and is a fitting inclusion in an evening of folk music. A sweet “This Hard Land” further rewards fan faith, and the good vibes continue on a quick rip through “No Surrender,” a song about the bonds of friendship and what matters in the face of hardship.

“I appreciate coming out here and having the room to play like this,” Springsteen says sincerely in the encore. However one feels today about the music he was performing circa 1995-97, it meant everything to Springsteen. In early 1995 he was at a crossroads, having effectively finished a solo album in the vein of “Streets of Philadelphia,” only to pivot suddenly and reconvene the E Street Band to record new music and promote Greatest Hits . But that year, Springsteen ultimately rediscovered himself as a solo artist through The Ghost of Tom Joad album and tour.

If we support the idea that he had to make Nebraska before he entered the inevitable superstar spotlight with Born in the U.S.A. , Springsteen needed to write, record and perform Tom Joad songs on his own before he could reunite with the E Street Band. This Akron recording is a compelling chronicle of that journey, including one key piece of the original source material.

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Bruce Springsteen Releasing 1996 Live Show

You can go here for further information about Freehold ’96 .  Downloads are available now and the CD can be pre-ordered.

As anyone who has been to a Springsteen concert or read his memoir or seen his Broadway show already knows, Springsteen was not an especially inspired student. But he is nostalgic, and the concert, held only for residents of Freehold, gave him an opportunity to reach back into his catalog and pull out a handful of rarely performed songs, as well as a brand new nine-minute song simply called “Freehold.”

Related: The Boss will receive a special Tony award for his ongoing “Springsteen on Broadway” show

On the website, the show is described: “This memorable homecoming stop on the Tom Joad tour sees Springsteen return to Freehold and his parochial school, St. Rose of Lima. Joined by special guests Patti Scialfa and Soozie Tyrell, Bruce reminisces and tears up the set list for nine tour debuts, including ‘The River,’ ‘Two Hearts’ ‘Racing in the Street,’ a rare ‘When You’re Alone’ and the only tour performances of ‘Open All Night,’ ‘Used Cars’ and ‘My Hometown.’ The show wraps with ‘Freehold,’ an uproarious paean penned for the occasion.”

Playing keyboards offstage was Kevin Buell.

According to an article posted on njarts.net, the concert was a benefit to establish a Latino community center at the church associated with the school.

Related: Columbia/Legacy will release a second volume of its Springsteen Albums Collection series

Freehold ’96 Set List 1. The River 7:45 2. Adam Raised a Cain 4:17 3. Straight Time 6:22 4. Highway 29 4:20 5. Darkness on the Edge of Town 3:37 6. Johnny 99 6:02 7. Mansion on the Hill 7:41 8. The Wish 6:42 9. Red Headed Woman 4:20 10. Two Hearts 3:44 11. When You’re Alone 3:49 12. Open All Night 9:05 13. Used Cars 4:33 14. Born in the U.S.A. 4:59 15. The Ghost of Tom Joad 9:11 16. Sinaloa Cowboys 4:41 17. The Line 7:46 18. Balboa Park 8:45 19. Across the Border 5:50 20. Growin’ Up 4:28 21. This Hard Land 5:16 22. My Hometown 6:57 23. Racing in the Street 5:27 24. The Promised Land 7:18 25. Freehold 9:00

Listen to “Freehold” from the concert

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Watch Bruce Springsteen Kick Off European Tour With First ‘So Young And In Love’ Performance Since 2013

• By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

Prior to hitting the road this year, Bruce Springsteen promised that he’d mix up the setlist far more than he did last year when a vocal contingent of fans complained there wasn’t enough variation from night to night. “Some of my basic themes of mortality and life and those things, I’m going to keep set,” he said on SiriusXM’s E Street Radio. “I think I’m gonna move around the other parts of the set a lot more, so there’ll be a much wider song selection going on. So we’re looking at it like, it’s a little bit of the old tour, but we’re looking at it like a new tour.”

At the kickoff date of his 2024 European tour at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, Springsteen stuck to that promise by beginning the show with “So Young And In Love,” a wonderfully obscure tune he hadn’t played live since 2013.

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The other notable moments in Cardiff were the first performances of “The River” and “Born in the U.S.A.” this year. The latter song rarely surfaces on this side of the Atlantic these days. It was played once in the States in 2023 and 22 times in Europe. On the 2016/17 River tour, it was played at four American gigs and 22 overseas ones. (The song has a long history of being misread in America .)

Springsteen and the E Street Band continue their European tour Thursday night in Belfast, Ireland. Another U.S. leg begins on August 15 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The 2024 tour wraps up on November 22 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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How to Stream Bruce Springsteen's Tour Online to Hear ‘Dancing In the Dark,' ‘Hungry Heart' & More From Home

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

Bruce Springsteen is back on the road after having to reschedule dates for his world tour to recover from peptic ulcer disease . Now, he and the E Street Band are rocking out around the U.S. all summer on the North American leg of their world tour.

Last-minute tickets are still available for the "Secret Garden" singer's tour, and you can find cheap seats on Ticketmaster , StubHub , Vivid Seats (orders of $200+ can get $20 off with code BB2024 ) and Seat Geek (first purchases are eligible for $10 off order of $250+ with code BILLBOARD10 ). We spotted Springsteen ticket prices for as low as $56.

If you weren't able to score travel deals to see the 74-year-old live and in-person, then nugs.net will let you stream Springsteen's tour from home - and for free. The site has a number of recordings from Springsteen's current tour available to stream from your laptop, phone, tablet or TV.

Take advantage of nugs.net's free trial , which will give you access to numerous performances by the "I'm On Fire" singer including past and upcoming performances from his tour. You'll also have access to more live shows, like Phish's sold-out concert at The Sphere , plus recorded concerts from the Grateful Dead, Metallica, Pearl Jam and Billy Strings.

Keep reading to learn more about how to stream Springsteen's shows online.

How to Stream Bruce Springsteen's 2024 World Tour Online

Want to stream Bruce Springsteen's tour online? While there isn't a livestream option, you can stream concerts from the Billboard Hot 100 chart maker as far back as 1978 (during the band's Darkness tour) on nugs.net, as well as more recent performances including the surprise appearance from Patti Scialfa during his April 4 concert in Inglewood, CA. If you're already a member of nugs.net, you can sign in and have instant access to on-demand streams as well as professionally mixed audio of concerts to listen at your leisure on your phone, TV or tablet .

Don't have a subscription? New nugs.net users who sign up now can receive a seven-day free trial that'll let you watch Springsteen's tour online for free as well as additional artist performances. Once your free trial is over, you'll be charged $14.99 a month for a subscription.

If you want to own recordings from the concert, the platform allows you to download audio in MP3 format ( from $14.99 ), which the site claims has been professionally-mixed for the best streaming quality. The live album downloads are then yours to keep.

Stream Springsteen concerts online and get full details here .

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• February 22, 1996 Setlist

Bruce Springsteen Setlist at Le Zénith, Paris, France

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Tour: The Ghost of Tom Joad Tour statistics Add setlist

• The Ghost of Tom Joad Play Video
• Adam Raised a Cain Play Video
• Straight Time Play Video
• Highway 29 Play Video
• Darkness on the Edge of Town Play Video
• Murder Incorporated Play Video
• Mansion on the Hill Play Video
• It's the Little Things Play Video
• Brothers Under the Bridge Play Video
• Born in the U.S.A. Play Video
• Dry Lightning Play Video
• Spare Parts Play Video
• Youngstown Play Video
• Sinaloa Cowboys Play Video
• The Line Play Video
• Balboa Park Play Video
• Across the Border Play Video
• Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street? Play Video
• This Hard Land Play Video
• Streets of Philadelphia Play Video
• Galveston Bay Play Video
• No Surrender Play Video
• The Promised Land Play Video

Edits and Comments

14 activities (last edit by [deleted user] , 4 Nov 2017, 23:25 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• Across the Border
• Balboa Park
• Dry Lightning
• Galveston Bay
• Sinaloa Cowboys
• Straight Time
• The Ghost of Tom Joad
• Adam Raised a Cain
• Darkness on the Edge of Town
• The Promised Land
• Born in the U.S.A.
• No Surrender
• Murder Incorporated
• Streets of Philadelphia
• Brothers Under the Bridge
• This Hard Land
• It's the Little Things
• Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?
• Mansion on the Hill
• Spare Parts

Complete Album stats

Bruce Springsteen

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Bruce Springsteen Gig Timeline

• Feb 20 1996 Festival della Canzone Italiana di Sanremo 1996 Sanremo, Italy Add time Add time
• Feb 21 1996 Le Zénith Paris, France Add time Add time
• Feb 22 1996 Le Zénith This Setlist Paris, France Add time Add time
• Feb 23 1996 Canal+, Nulle Part Ailleurs Paris, France Add time Add time
• Feb 25 1996 De Doelen Rotterdam, Netherlands Add time Add time

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