Clarence Clemons & The Boss (more by Tim Griffin HERE and HERE)

"It is with overwhelming sadness that we inform our friends and fans that at 7:00 tonight, Saturday, June 18, our beloved friend and bandmate, Clarence Clemons passed away. The cause was complications from his stroke of last Sunday, June 12th.

Bruce Springsteen said of Clarence: Clarence lived a wonderful life. He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years. He was my great friend, my partner, and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band." [BruceSpringsteen.net]

RIP Big Man

Continue reading "Clarence Clemons, RIP "

Clarence Clemons @ Giants Stadium (more by Tim Griffin)

Saxophonist Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band has suffered a stroke, according to various media reports.

Rolling Stone magazine reports that Clemons is "seriously ill after a stroke at his home in Florida."

The Associated Press quotes "a person who with Clemons in the past" as confirming that the musician had the stroke. [USA Today]

Get well soon Clarence.

photos by Tim Griffin

"Giants Stadium heard its last sha-la-las -- at least, the amplified kind with tens of thousands of voices singing along -- on Friday night, when Bruce Springsteen played the final concert before the stadium is demolished. During the three-hour set, sha-la-las filled this year's "Working on a Dream," the 1984 song "Darlington County" and Tom Waits' "Jersey Girl," the finale that Mr. Springsteen called the stadium's "last dance." It was Mr. Springsteen's 24th performance, dating back to 1985, at Giants Stadium, where the audiences are his most fervent fans: fellow New Jerseyans.

So in a way, Mr. Springsteen could identify with the place, and he did -- at least half-seriously -- in "Wrecking Ball," a robust, guitar-strumming song he wrote to start off each of his five final concerts at the stadium. (A video performance is at brucespringsteen.net.)

It may be the only song ever to make Giants Stadium itself the narrator, "raised out of steel in the swamps of Jersey." It remembers games played and blood spilled, and envisions the stadium's fate, when "all this steel and these stories, they drift away to rust/and all our youth and beauty's been given to the dust." Typically, Mr. Springsteen was thinking about work, mortality, and a sense of place, on his way to a chorus where everyone could join in.

He wasn't overly sentimental. Later, he pointedly called Giants Stadium "the last bastion of affordable sports seating."

At each of the Giants Stadium concerts, Mr. Springsteen played one of his albums all the way through, and the one he chose for Friday was his 1984 blockbuster, "Born in the U.S.A." Before he started the title track, he said it was "the song we started out with the first time we entered this arena."... [NY Times]

I already posted all five Giants Stadium setlists (first four shows & Friday night). More pictures from the final show, below...

Continue reading "Bruce Springsteen @ Giants Stadium for the last time - pics"

photos by Tim Griffin

"Technology is one problem, [Little Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band] observes. "I think in the old days, in order to even be decent, it took a lot of work," he says. "And today, relatively untalented and uncreative people can actually make rock 'n' roll music that sounds kind of decent. And I think that kind of fools people and causes people to be lazy."

But for [Steve Greenberg, founder of S-Curve Records], there's also a sense that the "square pegs" -- the naturally rebellious types -- are getting shoved in round holes. "A lot of opportunities inevitably these days go to people who fit the format, whether the format is Top 40 radio or 'American Idol' or [Radio] Disney or whatever it is," he says. "There's so much pressure to fit those slots. And it's the square pegs ultimately who are going to change the world."

The spirited Greenberg wants to channel that rebellious energy. He's high on a band he signed named Care Bears on Fire, a trio of 13-year-old Brooklyn girls [who have a free show coming up and] who sound like the Ramones with a touch of Shonen Knife.

"Their attitude is maybe one size doesn't fit all," he says. "I feel like the spirit of rock 'n' roll lives in those guys. ... They're having fun playing rock 'n' roll."" [CNN]

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (Little Steven included) played their second of two rock 'n' roll shows at the Izod Center in NJ on Saturday night (5/23). After the first (5/21), Bruce announced from the stage that they'd be back in September to play the final three Giants Stadium concerts. Both NJ setlists, and more pictures from Saturday's show, below...

Continue reading "Bruce Springsteen @ the Izod Center (night 2) - pics & setlist"

photos by Eric M. Townsend

It was E Street Family Night at Giants Stadium on Monday.

Drummer Max Weinberg's 18-year-old son Jay substituted for his father on "Born to Run," pounding the skins with authority as the elder Weinberg watched from the side of the stage. Bruce Springsteen's 16-year-old daughter, Jessica, danced onstage during the show-closing "Twist and Shout," and even took a little rock-star leap at the end. Also, Springsteen led the crowd in singing "Happy Birthday To You" to his wife, E Street Band member Patti Scialfa. She turned 55 yesterday.

This was the second of three shows that Springsteen and the band will be presenting at Giants Stadium this week, and though it was slightly longer than Sunday's show, it still lasted more than three hours and featured 28 songs. [The Star Ledger]

The setlist, and more pics, from last night's show below...

Continue reading "Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band @ Giants Stadium - pics"

Continue reading "Bruce Springsteen - 2007 Tour Dates & new album"