As it's the anniversary of the release of Tunnel of Love today I thought I'd post one of my favourite little bootlegs called Tunnel of Dust. All the songs on it were performed at different venues during Bruce's Solo Devil's and Dust Tour.
The versions on the above playlist are not necessarily the ones that appeared on this particular collection due to them not being on You Tube. Here are the versions that are different and the places/dates they were played in 2005:
Yesterday I posted about Springsteen's Seeger Sessions album, exactly a year before that was released Bruce released Devils and Dust. It was his third "acoustic" album following The Ghost of Tom Joad andNebraska. Bruce Springsteen was very open about the fact that many of the songs from Devils & Dust dated back a decade or more. Springsteen wrote the song "All the Way Home" for Southside Johnny to use in his album Better Days which was released in 1991. The songs "Long Time Comin'" and "The Hitter" were written and performed during Springsteen's solo Ghost of Tom Joad Tour in 1996. "Devils & Dust" is also known to have been written previously, and was featured in soundchecks during The Rising Tour beginning in the summer of 2003 and the following year during the Vote for Change Tour in late 2004.
Starbucks had been considered a possible retail outlet for the album, as it had accounted for about a quarter of all sales for the recently successful Ray Charles's Genius Loves Company. Starbucks, however, declined to sell copies of Springsteen's new album, sparking some headlines. Starbucks rejected the album not only because of the song "Reno", but because of stances that Springsteen had taken on corporate politics and Springsteen not granting approval for a cobranded disc and promotional deal that prominently featured the Starbucks name. Springsteen's label, Columbia Records, balked when the idea was floated, citing the blue-collar champion's well-known opposition to merchandising his music. "There were a number of factors involved...[Lyrics] was one of the factors, but not the only reason,"Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment, told Reuters. At a concert at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia, Springsteen introduced "Reno" by joking that the album would be available "at Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Kreme stores everywhere." Springsteen's performance of the title track at the 48th Grammy Awards caused a bit of a stir when he added a part of "Bring 'em Home" at the end (a song that in full was added to the Seeger Sessions American Land Edition in 2006).
I've done a couple of other posts on Devils & Dust and you can check them out here. There's loads of links to live performances from the 2005 Tour.
I'm not a fan of everything that's on the album but there's enough to make me want to play the album from time to time. I think that a lot of the songs come across a lot better in a live setting.
Devils and Dust - Bruce Springsteen
Columbia
Produced Brendan O'Brien
Released 25th April 2005 Europe and 26th April in the USA
US Chart #1 (Debuted at the top spot)
UK Chart #1
#1 in eight other European Countries:Austria, Belguim, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain.
Personnel Bruce Springsteen – vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass, drums, harmonica, tambourine, percussion Brendan O'Brien – hurdy-gurdy, sarangi, sitar, bass guitar, tambora Steve Jordan – drums Patti Scialfa – backing vocals Soozie Tyrell – violin, backing vocals Marty Rifkin – steel guitar Lisa Lowell – backing vocals Chuck Plotkin – piano Danny Federici – keyboards Nashville String Machine – strings Brice Andrus, Susan Welty, Thomas Witte, Donald Strand – horns Mark Pender – trumpet
The latest release from the Bruce Springsteen Concert Archives comes from the Devils and Dust Tour from 2005 and spotlights the night of 31st July at The Value City Theatre at The Jerome Schottenstein Center in Columbus, OH. The video below is taken from the Bootleg A Night of Debuts (to which someone has kindly added a few bonus tracks from 15th May Show at Cleveland State University (these tracks are not available on the official release).
31st July 2005 01 "This is Obscure" 02 Lift Me Up 03 Reason To Believe 04 Devils & Dust 05 Lonesome Day 06 "First Teenage Party" 07 Long Time Comin' 08 "Hang Your Ass Out There, Boss!" 09 Back In Your Arms 10 For You 11 State Trooper 12 Cynthia 13 One Step Up 14 Reno 15 When You're Alone 16 Valentine's Day 17 Lost In The Flood 18 The Rising 19 Further On (Up The Road) 20 Intro 21 Jesus Was An Only Son 22 Two Hearts 23 "Easier Said Than Done!" 24 The Hitter 25 Matamoros Banks 26 Ramrod 27 Bobby Jean 28 "North Jersey, South Jersey" 29 The Promised Land 30 Dream Baby Dream
Bonus Tracks: Cleveland State University, Wolstein Center, Cleveland, OH. May 15, 2005 31 Intro 32 My Beautiful Reward 33 Youngstown 34 Black Cowboys 35 "I Wasn't Filled With Much Love" 36 Stolen Car (tour premiere) 37 Maria's Bed
Live premiere of Lift Me Up, tour debut of Back In Your Arms and the first ever live acoustic version of Cynthia.
Piano songs are "Back In Your Arms", "For You", "Valentine's Day", "Lost In The Flood", and "Jesus Was An Only Son". "Reason To Believe" is with the bullet mic. "Dream Baby Dream" is on pump organ. "Lift Me Up" and "When You're Alone" are on electric piano. "State Trooper" is with the falsetto vocal.
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