this is not a dark ride.

rome balcony springsteen paparazzi 1988

[UPDATE: It’s been noted that I didn’t point out that this post ties to my most recent ‘liner notes’ over on Backstreets.com regarding the latest Springsteen Archive release, from 5/23/88. Oops. Tunnel vision.]

It wasn’t the photo I was in search of (we all saw it back in the day sufficient amounts that it is burned into memory) so much as it was the date, I needed to confirm the date. I needed to confirm the date because I wanted, again, the context: where did this all go down during the tour, and did it have an impact on the setlists?

These are the things I care about.

I’d already started with the aftermath of Born In The USA, and then Live 75-85, and how it took up all of Bruce’s bandwidth in ‘86. He started working on Tunnel of Love in January of 1987; the album was released on October 9, 1987 (literally the only thing I ever use Wikipedia for is to confirm dates I already kinda/sorta know).

It was called “The Tunnel of Love Express Tour” because (not dissimilar to the River Revisited in 2016) it was supposed to be a brief tour. It was supposed to be a tour with no more than two shows per city. It was not ever going to be performed in stadiums. It wasn’t even supposed to be with E Street, originally it was going to be a solo acoustic tour. The latter made fans angry, the abandonment of E Street, it even made me angry at the time.

Now I look back at it and see how far away he wanted to get from BITUSA, a thing he wanted, liked, and quite enjoyed, until he was in the middle of it and realized that he’d be that for the rest of his life if he didn’t do something to change that particular trajectory. But if Bruce didn’t know how to deal with the interpersonal issues in his marriage he sure didn’t know how to talk to his band about it in any kind of meaningful way, either.

• 1-20-88 - RRHOF where Bruce inducts Dylan - last public appearance of Bruce & Juli
• 1-24-88 - Tour rehearsals start
• 2-25-88 - TOL TOUR STARTS (Worcester)

I did not go to Worcester. I got offered tickets too late to have made it, at about 3pm the afternoon of the first show. I had friends who were there, though, and got a very late phone call from a rest stop somewhere on the Mass Pike: “HE MOVED EVERYONE AROUND! EVERYONE IS STANDING IN A DIFFERENT PLACE!” was the first thing that came shouting down the phone line. I think there was also a radio hit on one of the NYC FM stations, covering opening night, which was more informative than the phone call (me: “I suppose a setlist is out of the question.” “Caryn! Clarence is on the other side of the stage, it’s just WRONG!” “What about the horns?”) Those were the days of the Backstreets Hotline and I’m sure that I waited until I got to work the next day and put the number on auto redial until it got through.

• 5 shows at MSG: 5/16, 5/18, 5/19, 5/22, 5/23
• Last show of the US tour
• Those rehearsals in Minnesota, he’s getting ready

It goes without saying that writing about one show means going back and looking through Brucebase at the arc of the entire tour. I usually start pulling out setlists and throwing them into a spreadsheet for easy sorting and resorting. With Tunnel of Love, this was a much easier task, because the sets just did not change meaningfully from night to night. When there was a change, it was significant: switching out one Elvis ballad for another (read into that if you will), “Have Love, Will Travel” entering the legend, “Ain’t Got You” and “Who Do You Love” sharing duty in “She’s The One,” his fascination with “Across The Borderline” (which I agree with Flynn McLean, needs to get an official release somehow - in that great Rolling Stone interview from the tour, it’s referenced how he’s driving people crazy playing it in the bus all the time, and there’s probably a dotted line from “Across The Borderline” to Ghost of Tom Joad, but I digress.) “Boom Boom” enters the picture in Minnesota. Etc. Etc.

So there’s a spreadsheet with notes and transitions and comments that I can use to work from while I’m writing.

The thing with the Tunnel tour were these crazy-ass soundchecks. Documentation of soundchecks is tricky because 8 times out of 10, the crew is playing a tape and someone who is listening outside will hear that tape, not be able to discern that it’s a taped performance, and report it as a soundcheck. (This also happened when I worked on my Pearl Jam website — the crew would use a Temple of the Dog album and we would get hysterical emails that Chris Cornell was there, in St. Louis, in Fargo, in Charlotte.) Let’s take March 23 in Atlanta for an example:

Soundcheck: LUCKY DAY / SHE'S THE ONE / CRAZY LOVE - TUPELO HONEY / INTO THE MYSTIC / A CHANGE IS GONNA COME / LET IT BE ME / PRETTY FLAMINGO / BETTY JEAN / LET'S HAVE A PARTY / IS THAT ALL TO THE BALL (MR. HALL) / SHE'S THE ONE / YOU'RE THE ONE THAT DONE IT / A SATISFIED MIND / JUST LIKE A WOMAN / ONE OF US MUST KNOW (SOONER OR LATER) / DON'T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD / IT'S MY LIFE / TUNNEL OF LOVE

This was recorded by some enterprising soul who happened to be around, but it’s largely inaudible. That was the most extreme example, but plenty of oldies got tossed around in the soundcheck, along with multiple takes of “Tunnel of Love”. My colleague Marc Dolan (he of the excellent book Bruce Springsteen and the Promise of Rock 'n' Roll) wisely opines that the reason for the repeated rehearsals of the opening number is likely “because the opening was keyed to a stage set, the first Springsteen had ever used for his concerts…As a rule, the more stage business you have, the more can go wrong, so this may have been why they needed to practice this song at almost every hall they visited.”

So, again, it’s all more looking for clues, looking for hints, looking for ideas, interesting things to pull out.

• The arc:
• Tougher / TOL
• Ain’t Got You - STO / BTR
• You Can Look (temptation) / River
• I’m a Coward (hypocrisy)
• I’m On Fire (lust) / BITUSA
• One Step Up / TOL
• Part Man, Part Monkey -> Love Is Strange

Mickey & Sylvia (had come back into the collective consciousness bc of Dirty Dancing in 1987) Sylvia Robinson! But this was there since the beginning of the tour.

If you’ve read my stuff for any length of time, you know that I am always looking for the narrative arc, and in this show, I’m less interested in the front half/back half division (although it was very deliberate and very clear) than I am in this particular arc Mr. Springsteen created for himself, Mr. “I don’t know if I have a set.”

Other random items I chased down:

• Gino Washington’s “Gino Is A Coward,” from whence Mr. S. cribbed “I’m A Coward” (the original was better), can I find out where or how or WHY
• A careful re-read of the lyrics to “Gimme Shelter” to see if there was anything else in there that tied thematically or if he just liked the riff
• I already knew that Sylvia Robinson (she of Sugarhill Records fame) had written “Love Is Strange” but I couldn’t figure out where it came from and if there was any kind of backstory about Mickey & Sylvia that would’ve piqued Bruce’s interest (not that I could find), I really am gonna blame Dirty Dancing

There was more, but I am not giving away all the trade secrets. I hope this was remotely interesting.

This was a lovely show and Bruce is in such gorgeous voice. And I still think we could get a Shoreline before ‘88 starts to feel redundant within the Archives.

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Thanks for reading! Here’s to 2019.

BRUCE, RELEASE THE GODDAMN ALBUM ALREADY