The Highway’s Jammed With Broken Heroes

Bruce Springsteen played the first of three shows at Giants Stadium last night and I’m headed out tonight to see Show No. 2. Can’t wait. If anyone wants to chime in with comments on last night’s show, I’d love to hear them.

Here’s what Backstreets.com had to say, complete with setlist:

The show opened appropriately with the retelling of the Legend of the E Street Band, “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out.” Lots of dedications, including “Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart” for “my friend Jane,” and “Growin’ Up” for a ten-year-old sign-holder named Rosie. “This song was written a quarter-century before you were born,” Bruce told Rosie, “It must be good — your daddy was a wink in his mama’s eye!” And after the song, “There you were: a little egg inside a little egg inside a little egg….” “Mary’s Place” was “for my friend Wayne Myers, who has taught me so much about how to get there,” Bruce said, “Thank you, Dr. Wayne!” Complete with knee-slide and an extended preacher rap (including Clarence in Ed McMahon mode, echoing Springsteen’s offered wisdom), “Mary’s Place” stretched out to 14 minutes, and that’s even without band introductions.

After rejoining the band for the four shows in Spain, Patti Scialfa was with us again tonight, bringing out “Brilliant Disguise” and “Tunnel of Love.” Her husband gave her a quick peck after “Brilliant Disguise,” explaining, “I didn’t want to mess up that makeup.” To open the encore, Bruce decided to send one out to “one special Jersey girl,” which had some eagerly anticipating a certain Tom Waits cover… but just for a sec, before he went into, of course, “Girls in Their Summer Clothes.”

After “American Land,” and after making like he was done for the night, Bruce came back to the mic and told the crowd, “You ain’t got it.” He continued egging the crowd on — “You ain’t got it. I still got it… you ain’t got it” — before finally finding them up to the challenge: “Oh yeah? Let’s get it on!” No twisting and shouting tonight, that’s been left in Europe for the time being — instead, “Rosalita” came out to jump. “A true fairy tale to open the show,” Bruce declared, “and a true fairy tale to close the show.”

Setlist:
Tenth Avenue Freeeze-out
Radio Nowhere
Lonesome Day
No Surrender
Adam Raised a Cain
Spirit in the Night
Summertime Blues
Brilliant Disguise
Atlantic City
Growin’ Up
Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart
I’ll Work for Your Love
Youngstown
Murder Incorporated
The Promised Land
Livin’ in the Future
Mary’s Place
Working on the Highway
Tunnel of Love
The Rising
Last to Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
* * *
Girls in Their Summer Clothes
Jungleland
Born to Run
Bobby Jean
Dancing in the Dark
American Land
Rosalita