Melbourne, Australia - 15 Feb, 2014 FLAC 16bit/44.1kHz

Official live recordings of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's concert at the AAMI Park Melbourne, Australia - 15 Feb, 2014.

Product Note: Once you purchase this product you will be able to download a 1.35 GB ZIP file containing 35 tracks. Tracks are in FLAC format which is not compatible with all mobile music players. FLAC sounds better than MP3 because it doesn’t suffer from compression artifacts, but it takes longer to download. ZIP files require that the user be able to extract the file, which the iPad doesn’t support. FLAC files need to be downloaded to a PC or Mac, and then they can sync to an iPhone, iPad, or andriod device or something that supports MP3s.Approximate time to download is 30-180 minutes depending on the speed of your internet connection.

Released: February 16, 2014

Track List

01 Highway To Hell
02 Darkness On The Edge Of Town
03 Badlands
04 Seeds
05 High Hopes
06 Just Like Fire Would
07 Jole Blon
08 Hungry Heart
09 Bruce Talk
10 Born In The U.S.A.
11 Cover Me
12 Darlington County
13 Working On The Highway
14 Downbound Train
15 I'm On Fire
16 No Surrender
17 Bobby Jean
18 I'm Goin' Down
19 Glory Days
20 Dancing In The Dark
21 My Hometown
22 Bruce Talk 2
23 Factory
24 Shackled And Drawn
25 The Ghost Of Tom Joad
26 The Rising
27 Land Of Hope And Dreams
28 Heaven's Wall
29 Born To Run
30 Rosalita
31 Seven Nights To Rock
32 Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
33 Shout
34 Bruce Talk 3
35 Thunder Road


Copyright ©2014. All Rights Reserved.

©2014 Live Nation Merchandise is a division of Live Nation

Photographer Jo Lopez

The carnival has moved east. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have set up camp in Melbourne for two stadium shows. Outdoors, the opening night is sold out. Dan Sultan opened proceedings in the late afternoon. Next came reunited national treasures Hunters & Collectors. The stadium is half full as the Hunters move things up a gear with Say Goodbye. It always brings a smile to hear a few thousand blokes singing in unison, ‘You don’t make me feel like a woman anymore’. A highlight of their set was the anthem, “Throw Your Arms Around Me” with its’ adjusted lyrics which now highlight the plight of asylum seekers.

Then it was time for the main event. Almost twelve months ago I wrote in our national newspaper, The Australian, that Bruce and Co. ‘were the greatest rock and roll show on earth’. Now… they’re better than that.

Sitting in a hotel room, with the show still ringing in my ears, I want to skip the chronological order of the set list and just tell you how brilliant, joyful and moving the show was. It was if Bruce and the E Street Band use ‘great’ as a starting point and then head off on a whole other trajectory. All I know is, after seeing a thousand-and-then-some concerts, this was one of the truly special nights. It was that rare beast that makes you feel uninhibited and fills you with some kind of faith in your fellow travellers and confirms your teenage belief that rock and roll can soothe your soul and make the world seem a whole lot brighter. Thinking back to that first night in Perth, Bruce knew what he’d be bringing all along. Tonight, like all magic… one and one made three… a hundred times over.

The sun was sticking around when the show started. The E Street band hit the stage and Bruce appears from the back of the drum riser. He announces a special guest, Eddie Vedder. They open with AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell” and it’s delivered with all the zeal of an encore. Next comes “Darkness On The Edge of Town” with Vedder inhabiting his verses like he wrote them. It’s a stunning collaboration and then Vedder is gone. Bruce kicks into Badlands and Jake Clemons gives the first of a series of terrific solos that are dotted through the night.
Next comes a gritty “Seeds” with the entire horn section amped up and stuck on a menacing groove. It’s followed by “High Hopes“, replete with Tom’s nod to Hendrix on the solo and The Saints’ “Just Like Fire Would” which the audience sing word-for-word back to the stage. For my money, it’ s the best version of the song the E Streeter’s have done to date and there have been some cracking renditions in that mix.

The sun has disappeared and Bruce spots a sign for Jole Blon: a relative obscurity, it’s a gorgeous slice of Cajun rock with Charlie shining on accordion. The singers come front and centre to add a little gospel and Roy backs them up by channelling the mood of the Church on the ivories.

“Hungry Heart” gives Bruce a chance to hit the floor and shake a few hands. The stars are in alignment and this version is something special. Bruce tells the crowd how much he ‘loves it here’. Not wanting to do the ‘same thing twice’, he gives the capacity crowd something special, the Born In The USA album played in its’ entirety. This is the first time Bruce has done an ‘album show’ in Australia. A superb choice, it was the record that broke him commercially in this country.

We all know the sequence and we all know what a wonderful ensemble piece it is, but, listening to it in this context, this writer was again floored by the depth of the material. Every mood seems to be captured in the grooves: the good, the bad, the troublesome and, that word again, joy.

After the intensity of the title track, the band tear into “Cover Me“. Bruce shreds the lead lines early and then Nils plays like a man possessed. Again the horns shine and the groove on the long outtro nails you to the floor. It’s hard to pick favourites, but “Downbound Train” was stunning. “Darlington County” and “Working On The Highway” had the entire venue singing. “No Surrender” is magnificent while Bobby Jean saw a young man in the audience get on bended knee and propose. (Thankfully, the proposal was accepted.)
‘Only in Australia’, said Bruce as two men in ‘Cindy wigs’ came on stage to dance with Miss Mizelle during “Dancing In The Dark“. Even though we’ve heard it a million times before: tonight it shot an arrow through this reviewer like it was the first time. It was that kind of night.

“My Hometown” was solemn and beautifully austere and it closed the ‘album’. But, the show was hardly over. A sign was gathered up for “Factory” and Bruce told a story about when he was ‘five or six’ his father worked in the Ford Factory in Brunswick New Jersey. He then took a broadside at the ‘reckless and greedy people’ who tipped the world into GFC turmoil before meditating on the ‘meaning of work and the importance of work in your life’ before calling for the song ‘in the key of F’.

The final furlong of the main set included “Shackled and Drawn“, “The Ghost Of Tom Joad“, “The Rising” and a rousing “Land of Hope and Dreams“. “Heaven’s Wall“, which is fast becoming a highlight from the High Hopes album, was followed by a house lights up, take no prisoners, “Born To Run“.

Drenched in sweat and with a killer gig already behind him Bruce asks ‘Are you ready to get the party started?’ Then comes the greatest ever “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” Melbourne has probably ever witnessed. Moon Mullican’s mission statement “7 Nights To Rock” is next and finally Bruce is on the piano calling for “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out“. Curfews are meant to be broken and Bruce delivered one of the greatest nights of rock and roll magic this town has seen. “Shout” is played for the Big Man. It’s one for the ages. Springsteen brought the night to a close with an acoustic “Thunder Road“. He’ll be back tomorrow ‘for another spectacular.’

-Sean Sennett