With a major snow storm wrecking the east coast this weekend, Springsteen had to postpone his highly anticipated return to Madison Square Garden on Sunday night. As a "thank you / I'm sorry" to the fans, he has released a live recording of the 1/19 Chicago show for free. It is only available for 48 hours, so if you are interested, make sure to grab it quickly! You can download the show here.
Despite the new spat of Springsteen shows, I still can't shake the post-Bowie mourning I am going through. It seems that every day there's something new about Bowie, whether it is a tribute by another artist, a retrospective article, or, in this case, a rare audio clip. Here, Bowie is messing around, singing in the style of many different musicians. His Springsteen is in the first 48 seconds of the clip, and it seems that even Bowie can't get his voice to go as low and gravely as Bruce's. Bowie also goofs on Tom Waits, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop, among others. However, the thing I enjoyed most about these clips were the small moments in between the impressions, as you could hear Bowie just talking and laughing, with his persona completely "off". I'll say it before, and I'll say it again (because I have no idea how to end the post), but thank you Bowie!
Continuing what has been an already sad year for music fans, Glenn Frey died this past Monday. The next night, Bruce honored the Eagles singer-songwriter with a slowed-down, acoustic version of their free-wheeling hit "Take It Easy". While it is fascinating as a Bruce fan to see his take on these classic songs (he did Bowie's "Rebel Rebel" during the first show), hopefully we'll be able to see Springsteen do a cover for a less somber occasion.
Has it really been over a year since our last "Bruce Vs. Bruce" battle? Well, let's start 2016 off right with perhaps Bruce's toughest opponent yet! Yes, I speak of the Bruce referred to in the refrain for Electric Light Orchestra's 1979 hit "Don't Bring Me Down". Let's see how our champion fare against this mysterious challenger.
Ding ding ding! The winner, in a 5-3 match, is Bruce Springsteen. It just goes to show: being a real person named Bruce is much better than being a song lyric that sounds like "Bruce" but actually is just some weirdo German word.
The highly anticipated River Tour started last night in Pittsburgh, and, of course, Bruce gave his fans a special surprise. At the start of the encore, Bruce came out with a short story about meeting David Bowie, and kicked off his rendition of "Rebel Rebel". Bruce had a lot of fun with live covers during the High Hopes tour, so here's hoping this tour continues the trend. You can check out the entire killer setlist here.
This morning, the music world lost a true pioneer in David Bowie. I can't pretend to accurately put into words here how much he meant to the musical world, the artistic world, and to his fans. The only thing I'd recommend is to take some time to listen to his expansive catalog, which spans nearly 50 years. As this is a Springsteen blog, I feel obliged to highlight his two Springsteen covers, "Growin' Up" and "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City". You can read more about these songs in our previous post about them.
With Springsteen's tour kicking into full gear shortly, I'm sure there will be many surprise guest musicians. With that in mind, today we spotlight the original "Seger Session" from 1980. The audio is rough, but it is such a rare combination that it is worth a listen. In the comments, let us know your favorite Bruce surprise guest, and who you'd like to see on the upcoming tour!
