Full "The River" in a stadium show?

Have you seen the crowd at the US stadium shows?  A lot of Aunt Barbs and Uncle Freds, who haven't seen a show since 1985.  Seriously, they aren't there to see an album they once owned.  They are there to hear Glory Days.  Bruce knows his audience pretty well.  The entire audience - not just the few of us who post on message boards. 

ralfsturm posted:

Pls ignore this thread if it is too whiny or too Lakey or too BTXy...
(or all of the above...)

 

It's a great tour. He delivers awesome shows. He makes people happy. (Including me.)
But...
there could have been even more, no?

Have to agree with that. I didn't mind not getting the whole album but for Milan,   Barcelona and others to get into double figures and London to only get 5 tracks does seem very random.

and now in Rome ,,waiting,working,youngstown,no surrender,etc..

why the hell Circus Maximus is not covered?

a shame ,, although the boss

Because it will be a singalong crowd... my 10 year old won't mind no river

pk56 posted:

I didn't mind not getting the whole album but for Milan,   Barcelona and others to get into double figures and London to only get 5 tracks does seem very random.

 

That's exactly what I am talking about.

I didn't mind not getting the whole album either. But getting the 5-track-treatment was no fun.

There were people around us last night didn't have a clue what he was playing

sat looking at Facebook all night never stood once and never clapped once

oh sorry they stood up for Born in the USA

yorkboss posted:

There were people around us last night didn't have a clue what he was playing

sat looking at Facebook all night never stood once and never clapped once

oh sorry they stood up for Born in the USA

 

 

That's where we are now, so many their to tag themselves at the venue and take a few minutes video of their fave song, at least they were quiet  

yorkboss posted:

There were people around us last night didn't have a clue what he was playing

sat looking at Facebook all night never stood once and never clapped once

oh sorry they stood up for Born in the USA

The people - and also the Aunt Barbs and Uncle Freds that Julius is talking about -  don't have a clue what he is playing when he is plaing
Adam Raised A Cain
Incident On 57th Street (Solo Piano)
Death To My Hometown
Youngstown
Murder Incorporated
Mansion On The Hill (Solo Acoustic)
Brilliant Disguise...
either.

All they know is BITUSA and Glory Days. They may be disappointed not to hear Streets Of Philadelphia.

But they still enjoy the show, because it is loud and long, and Springsteen is a famous rocker, that's why they go.

Point is, the non-die-hards clap their hands anyway. Or they look at Facebook,
no matter what he actually plays.
So there is no reason not to play a full album.

The ticket says that this is The River tour. But this theme got a bit lost along the way here in Europe (at least up to Gothenburg #2).  

Personally I don't need The River in full and in sequence at every show. But I think the majority of the songs played should be from the album and especially the outtakes.  

I still wonder why he's ignoring the outtakes. Driving home from Berlin I listened to disc four of the box set. And I thought that nearly every song from this could be played in a stadium setting without problems. We all know that the band is capable of playing everything he throws at them. So why not using the mighty power of the ESB?

My sign - and maybe outfit for the Horsens show

You're carrying the Animal? I have seen that on the screen at several shows

Good sign, I second that. Don't think we'll be at any of he same shows from onow on though. 

Stampe posted:

My sign - and maybe outfit for the Horsens show

 

 

Yes please bring this to Horsens:-) And bring it very early....

ralfsturm posted:

Pls ignore this thread if it is too whiny or too Lakey or too BTXy...
(or all of the above...)

But I just have to vent a little emotion here.

Why does everybody seem to agree that the "Full River" would not work in a stadium?
Don't get me wrong. I don't want to start a discussion.
(There is no point in the argument that he cannot play "Fade Away" and "Stolen Car" back to back, when he can play an acoustic "Mansion On The Hill" in the middle of the set at a festival.
We could go on and on... The "proof" is endless. "I Wanna Marry You" can be as much fun as "Death To My Hometown", can it not? Even "Meet Me In The City" could rock more people than an acoustic "Growing Up". The average concert goer in Europe has heard neither of the two.)

I just don't understand why he is making such strange decisions, setlist-wise.
Ah, I forgot. He's the Boss. He can do what he wants. And we don't have to buy tickets, if we only come to complain, yes...

It's a great tour. He delivers awesome shows. He makes people happy. (Including me.)
But...
there could have been even more, no?

I agree with you completly! This fake River Tour has turned into a greatest hits soup of worst case scenario... I can simply not understand why? I can hardly tell the difference of the Magic, Working On A Dream and Wrecking Ball Tours and now this "River Tour"

I've said from the night in Barcelona this is a band farewell tour

regardless of what Stevie has said about it not

hes hardly gonna say it is at the start of the tour

ive been lucky saw 2 of the best shows on this tour so glad I didn't go to any UK shows they pale in comparison 

sad really

Topper posted:

ralfsturm posted:

Pls ignore this thread if it is too whiny or too Lakey or too BTXy...
(or all of the above...)

But I just have to vent a little emotion here.

Why does everybody seem to agree that the "Full River" would not work in a stadium?
Don't get me wrong. I don't want to start a discussion.
(There is no point in the argument that he cannot play "Fade Away" and "Stolen Car" back to back, when he can play an acoustic "Mansion On The Hill" in the middle of the set at a festival.
We could go on and on... The "proof" is endless. "I Wanna Marry You" can be as much fun as "Death To My Hometown", can it not? Even "Meet Me In The City" could rock more people than an acoustic "Growing Up". The average concert goer in Europe has heard neither of the two.)

I just don't understand why he is making such strange decisions, setlist-wise.
Ah, I forgot. He's the Boss. He can do what he wants. And we don't have to buy tickets, if we only come to complain, yes...

It's a great tour. He delivers awesome shows. He makes people happy. (Including me.)
But...
there could have been even more, no?

I agree with you completly! This fake River Tour has turned into a greatest hits soup of worst case scenario... I can simply not understand why? I can hardly tell the difference of the Magic, Working On A Dream and Wrecking Ball Tours and now this "River Tour"

I don`t know we have done to derserve this here i Europe? Don`t misunderstand me! Im really glad they come over here. And spend also a lot of Money to be a part of this, but it could have been so so much better. Also for the band....

On my way back home from Berlin june 19th. I was listning to disc 4 of the River Box set. Really really great stuff, that in my ears could fill up a stadium in a big sing along... But we have none of them at all? Why? In Berlin they played "My Lucky Day" I can find 20 songs on the River album that is much much better than this one... In the end we had 5 songs from the River ( Hungry Heart, The Ties That Bind, Out In the Streets, Sherry Darling and You Can Look?? ) Those 5 songs have been played in Germany to death on the last 3 tours and now the last 4 tours! Why?

Now I go in 3 days to Horsens in Denmark! WOW Horsens (My Hometown) A tiny little stadium ( Can hold 30.000 to concerts and 9,000 at football games) Can They play the River album there? YES they can!! But will they do that? NO...Why? I don`t know why, maybe because we have some new fans in the stadium with children, so we need a karaoke song of Waiting On A Sunny Day with child that can not even sing and will never learn! But it`s my baby, so I´m so so proud:-) And leave out some River songs Again?

desa33 posted:

The ticket says that this is The River tour. But this theme got a bit lost along the way here in Europe (at least up to Gothenburg #2).  

Personally I don't need The River in full and in sequence at every show. But I think the majority of the songs played should be from the album and especially the outtakes.  

I still wonder why he's ignoring the outtakes. Driving home from Berlin I listened to disc four of the box set. And I thought that nearly every song from this could be played in a stadium setting without problems. We all know that the band is capable of playing everything he throws at them. So why not using the mighty power of the ESB?

HaHa...I did the same:-) Listning to disc 4 all the way back home to Denmark!:-)

Topper posted:

I don`t know we have done to derserve this here in Europe? (...)

In Berlin they played "My Lucky Day"  

That is the reason why I opened this thread.

Maybe we need a self-help-group,
Disappointed-Euro-Bruce-Fans Anonymous,
to vent frustration.

Thing is, now it has gotten way, way better.

Milan, Gothenburg, Paris, Rome... awesome shows altogether, probably some of the best shows they have ever done. I just wish I had seen more of that, and not have had to suffer "My Lucky Day". 

Of course, even Berlin was a good show. But it could have been so much more. 5 River songs was a big, big disappointment.

Unfortunately this is what happens when we go to see him 

no show ever the same which is why we still keep going hoping to see that "special" show 

but the tour has been very up and down re river songs which is how this tour was advertised

Now that the Euro tour has finished, and being someone with way too much time on my hands I have reckoned up the average number of River songs performed in each country. This excludes countries having only one show, which conveniently covers the festival shows.  By my calculations I get the following (rounded up). :

Germany 6
UK 8
Denmark 9
Ireland 10
Norway 11
Spain 11
Italy 11
Sweden 12
France 18

Not sure what this is telling us but it certainly confirms the variability of the tour! In addition, if you take out the songs that are played at every show I think, in particular, the figures for UK and Germany would be very low.

euh, The Hague was NOT a festivalshow, a full 3.5h show!

only 2 real festivals, Belgium and Portugal!

so, worst off? Holland with only 5 River songs, take out the usuals and you end up with : 0
Same for Switzerland: 5 rivers ending up with 1 not so regular river song, Ramrod

dunno what that tells us 

still, very good show that night in The Hague (been to Rome and Milan, so I can compare here)

Second night in Paris with 20 out of 20 River songs was great! ;-)

Meet Me In The City was missing there, but Iceman was a perfect choice to start a special night.

Don't know how The (full) River worked in Gothenburg and Oslo. At least the concert "in the park" seemed to be located very nice (according to the pictures I saw) with all those trees surrounding all and nice weather as well.

I mentioned long ago, probably leading up to my Manchester show how frustrating this tour was going to be. I so so so so wanted MMITCT and a few more River outtakes. I do feel cheated! 

Does the River work in a stadium? The whole album, probably not, but it largely depends upon the crowd. As mentioned in this thread, many fans appear to know the encour part of the set and when something else comes on they simply don't pay attention. At Manchester I was on row one of the stands and spent so much time trying not to be distracted by people, I won't call them fans, chatting, going the loo, going for a beer and basically doing anything but paying attention. It really spoiled the show! Manchester was quite enjoyable, but not memorable! So, if that was the last ESB tour, then they leave on a very poor note! 

Dare I also say that something else was missing or lost from recent tours? Is it his and the bands age? Is it the lack of a horn section? Has he lost a yard of pace?

I don't know, but one thing is sure I guess I'll be online desperately seeking tickets if he graces these shores again, which I certainly hope he will!

Crakkers posted:

I don't know, but one thing is sure I guess I'll be online desperately seeking tickets if he graces these shores again, which I certainly hope he will! 

You are not alone!

Have a great summer everybody...

Hope I manage to stay off the SPL for the next couple weeks now.  

Having only done 3 shows on this tour, I feel underwhelmed by this tour, I didn't leave the shows with the buzz of previous tours.  Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy each one, but I'm glad I only did one foreign show. Ok Manchester was cold & wet, so I never got going. Coventry was good for me, as all my family was there for the first time ever, we had good seats and the atmosphere in our section was good, only a few kept in their seats.

I was there for the 2nd Paris show & I witnessed the full River show, so that was great and it did work well in the arena, but its not a great audience album IMHO. Thank goodness, no 'Waiting on a sunny day'!

For me, what was missing was the spontaneity of the previous tours, not knowing what was going to be played, the rarities, and listening to new material.