Springsteen Video of the Week - Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, Live in New York City

For the first ever Springsteen Video of the Week, I'd like to humbly submit this live version of "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out". I love this song, because it touches on two subjects I've been obsessed with since childhood.

The first is entrance music. As a wee boy growing up in Middle of Nowhere, New Jersey, I dreamed of making it as a star in the National Basketball Association. And while being a basketball star would potentially bring me fame, fortune, and women, what I truly desired was a bad-ass song to enter the court to. Who can hear this song without thinking of Michael Jordan? And entrance music worked for many of the careers I came up with as a child: wrestler, astronaut, Transformer, what have you.

"Tenth Avenue Freeze Out"'s opening would be what I'd want to enter a confetti-and-laser-light-filled room to. The original studio version is a scant few seconds. However, in the video above, Clarence plays those same nine notes for over two minutes. Honestly, I could've listened to it for twenty-two minutes.

The second reason to love this song is because it is the origin story of the E Street Band. As a comic book nerd, I always loved a good story explaining how the hero got his powers. In this live version he goes into even greater detail explaining how the E Streeters came to be.

So this is why I chose a twenty minute version of "Tenth Avenue" as the first Springsteen Video of the Week. It is powerful, and Bruce gives it his all. This blog may last two weeks, two years, or two decades, but at least, off the bat, we got to throw a rock-and-roll bar mitzvah.