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Have to say it, no matter which way you look at it Tom Morello's guitar solo on The Ghost Of Tom Joad is IMO the best guitar solo on any officially released Bruce product ever. On the video his finger work can only be described as mesmerising. If Bruce ever needs another guitar player then Tom has my vote.

Now if they would officially release Because The Night from this tour then it might be a contest.
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I would agree that it is probably the best in terms of how technically difficult it is. But 'best' is purely subjective once you go beyond the physical difficulty involved in palying a solo.

If because the night was released I think that it would dwarf Morello's solo though, and it's not just that it I prefer it, there's just more passion and energy in the solo (to my ears anyway). I think the same can be said of many of Bruce's solos. Many of the officially released stuff might lack the technical proficiency of morello, but personally, the passion you can hear in any of bruce's solos more than makes up for it.

It's a shame that the videos on bs.net have stopped. I'd have loved to have a more recent video of nils' because the night solo, as the bootlegs seem to show that it just keeps getting better.
I bet you Nils was crapping his pants when Tom Morello was playing this! Bruce could have turned around and threw him out of the band before Tom left the stage.

I thought that the full band version of Youngstown was intense in the sense that they took an acoustic -stripped down song and rocked out...but this version of Joad blew Youngstown away. Total respect for Morello...his vocals were spot on and what can you say about the guitar playing!! This was a GEM moment....top 10 in Bruce history for sure!
Great vocals and guitar solo by Morello. I really like it. Great version of the song. Bruce is pretty cool to release a four-track-ep where the guest is playing the leading role on three of the tracks. And I guess Danny is pretty much the main man on the fourth as well.

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Hey kid, you think that's oil? Man, that ain't oil that's blood

Hi everyone,

As a guitar player/Springsteen afficionados, I tought that I would contribute this post by adding some information on the quality of his solos + his gear "set up" that has continually evolved during the different tours ... Much thing has been said (wrong or right) about his guitar and his gear but the change of the sound and his technique had dramatically changed his solos troughout his carrier.

It's a shame that Springsteen gave up his (old) gear after the River tour. He completly changed his amp/effet set up after the end of the "River tour" in 1981.

Foreplay: to play electric guitar, you need a electric guitar (of course) but you also need an amplifier (take the sound of the instrument and makes it sound louder), speakers (you plug the speaker in the Amp) and finally some effets (distortion, delay, reverberation ...) much of the time, Amplifier and speakers are a "one piece" but you can also have seperate amplifiers and speakers. The speakers on the Magic tour are the 2 big (4x12) "Marshall" cabinets sitting on stage just behind him. The Amps are "Messa Boogie".

From the beginning (1970s) to the "darkness tour" he had a very powerfull overdriven sound that he got with his Bassman Amp + a "fuzz box" that he started loosing on the "Born in the USA tour" by switching to Fender's "1965 Twin reberb" amps. Then on the Tunnel of love tour, he used 4x12 Marshall cabinets speakers that gave him a very hot/round/warmer sound. One thing that really matters in his solos is the musical quality of the solo (of course) but the sound can really ruin or emphasize a solo too ... Since the Reunion Tour, he's been using Mesa Boogie Amps and his sound is much of the time too thin. When Steve takes a solo (Jungleland), you can actually hear what he's playing. His guitar screams ... When Springsteen take a solo, much of time it sounds deep low in the mix and all the frequencies mixed up with all the other instruments of the band.

About the musical quality. It's true that during the Reunion tour his solos were not very clear and much of the time to be true very unclear ! Listen to countless boots from the 99-2000 tour. He messes up a lot especially on shorts cues like Badlands. Prove it all night is often a "wall of sound" that does not go anywhere. The version of the song on the released live in NYC is awfull. I find that sometimes his improvised solos lack a musical direction. They just turn around and around and he seems sometimes unable to find his way around. It's very strange tough. If you listen to the DVDs "Open all night" with the Seeger sessions band live in Dublin, he takes a acoustic guitar solo wich is so perfect. Nothing can be said, the melody is so well constructed, it's amazing ...

Don't forget about the official released live material. Often part of solos are re-recorded in the studio, known as overdubs. If you read carefully the Boxset's booklet, you'll see that parts of songs were re-recorded in the studio. Backstreets a couple years ago had listed all the overdubs done to the tracks on the LIve 75-85 that were done by comparing the original live versions and the definitive versions on the 3 CDs.

I would like to find this article if anyone has it ...
Thanks !

Silvertelecaster.
Originally Posted By: Silvertelecaster
Prove it all night is often a "wall of sound" that does not go anywhere. The version of the song on the released live in NYC is awfull.
Funny! Exactly that solo on the LINYC-DVD is the one, that I like the most. By far! blush Of course it isn't technically a great solo. But I love the aggressive sound and the emotion that he puts into it. How the band drives along and how it comes to the powerful finish. I really have to watch it again tonight... grin

From the concerts that I attended (around 30 since '88) I've to mention D?sseldorf on 2008-06-16. That show had really some great solos. I think through all these weeks there were some good solos. But shortly after he began to wear these crazy black forearm things (?) I guess because of some medical problems. In Hamburg on 2008-06-21 he had clearly some big problems with his solos. The one at the end of prove it was cut this evening...
Originally Posted By: Silvertelecaster
Hi everyone,

Don't forget about the official released live material. Often part of solos are re-recorded in the studio, known as overdubs. If you read carefully the Boxset's booklet, you'll see that parts of songs were re-recorded in the studio. Backstreets a couple years ago had listed all the overdubs done to the tracks on the LIve 75-85 that were done by comparing the original live versions and the definitive versions on the 3 CDs.

I would like to find this article if anyone has it ...
Thanks !

Silvertelecaster.


Yes, I've heard that too but not seen any details.
If someone could post that would be great!
Hazy
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