The Springsteen Archives: B-Sides and Broken Hearts In Detroit (March 28, 1988)

Bruce Springsteen at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, March 28, 1988. 
Photo by Ken Settle. http://www.kensettlephotography.com 

Legend has it that the first time Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band ever played Detroit, one of his amps literally blew up. Other area shows over the years have seen milestones, from the first-ever “Detroit Medley” to guest appearances by Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder, and Martha Reeves. And in 2009, Springsteen thought he was in Ohio (Little Steven set him straight) only to return in 2012 to announce, “I know where the fuck I am!”

Bruce Springsteen shreds the solo for "Adam Raised a Cain" at Joe Lewis Arena in Detroit,
March 28, 1988. Photo by Ken Settle. http://www.kensettlephotography.com 

In 1988, Bruce came to Detroit a day early for the band’s two-night stand, taking in Terence Trent D’Arby’s show in suburban Royal Oak the evening before his first Joe Louis Arena performance — that’s today’s Live Archive release, March 28, 1988.

Detroit becomes the Archive Series’ fourth ’88 show. As the Tunnel of Love Express Tour’s earliest representation yet, it features the most songs from its namesake album. Springsteen and the E Street Band performed nine songs from Tunnel of Love on this night — including the first live release of “Walk Like a Man” (here, featuring the Horns of Love). There’s also a magnificent cover of “Love Me Tender” in the encores. Another tour highlight, “Be True,” was captured from this show for the "Chimes of Freedom" EP; released in August, 1988, the B-side became the tour’s first official live recording. Now, we can hear the show in its entirety.

The "Tunnel Of Love" album was deliberately scaled back from Born in the U.S.A., certainly in terms of band participation. "Brilliant Disguise," its first single, is more than a little reminiscent of another Elvis song, "Suspicious Minds," ending with the line “God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of.” The second single, the album's title track, concluded this way: “You've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above.” Even for an artist whose lyrics had openly wrestled with various forms of darkness over a 15-year recording career, these statements were uncommonly downcast.

Bruce Springsteen at the Joe Louis Arena, 
March 28, 1988. Photo by Ken Settle.  
http://www.kensettlephotography.com

A third single, "One Step Up," was released as the tour started that February, and had risen to #28 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart at the time of the Detroit stop (it would eventually go to #13). A thoroughly miserable song, it was paired on the single with "Roulette," which until then had been among Springsteen’s most famous unreleased tracks. Bruce found a spot for “Roulette” in the setlist after “Seeds”; that gave an angry double-gut counterpunch to the sweetness of “All That Heaven Will Allow.”

Looking back, it's startling to see how much Springsteen changed the presentation for The Tunnel of Love Express Tour. It wasn’t simply a matter of swapping E Street Band members’ placement on stage. Look at the setlist. The first seven songs — just one of which had been a part of Springsteen’s set during his most recent Michigan appearance in 1985 — weave together three from the new album (“Tunnel of Love,” “Two Faces,” and “All That Heaven Will Allow”), a deep album track (“Adam Raised a Cain”), and three songs that had not been on any studio LP (“Be True,” “Seeds,” and “Roulette”). Plenty of hits appeared in the show, but this was hardly a suite of old favorites. As the show started, a sign on stage behind Terry Magovern’s ticket booth read “This is a Dark Ride”; by the time the band finished “Roulette,” you could be excused for believing it.

The most searing moment comes towards the end of the first set. The band plays “Born in the U.S.A.,” laid visually bare without the huge flag. About four minutes in, just before the drum coda, there is Bruce, just there, writhing on the stage, prone, wailing. Somehow beyond mere performance, it’s a gut-wrenching howl of painful screaming. How can he do that to his voice? How can he even have a second set, after that? How can he do that same thing, night after night?

The remnants of Joe Louis Arena, March 5, 2020

Overall, the concert in Detroit was tight and fast-paced. Although the Tunnel of Love Express Tour was still in its early stages, the performances had gelled. Spoken intros to songs such as “Spare Parts” and “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)” are shorter than they’d be by the time of the April 23 show in Los Angeles, previously issued in 2015 as the Live Archive Series’ sixth release. As with most tours, Springsteen typically tools with setlists and arrangements; in the live archive thus far, Detroit is closest to the tour’s original blueprint he laid out in Worcester.

Although the Joe Louis Arena wasn’t even ten years old at the time of the Tunnel of Love Express Tour, these two shows would be Springsteen’s last there: he moved on to The Palace of Auburn Hills as his primary Detroit-area large-hall venue in 1992. Both buildings are currently being demolished; the final large beam of Joe Louis Arena came down only this week, on March 4.

It’s not all darkness, though. After a typically rousing “Light of Day,” a seven-song encore, anchored by the acoustic “Born to Run” and accented further by “Love Me Tender,” helps restore some sense of equilibrium. And the inclusion of “I Hear a Train” (or, maybe “I Hear a Train with a really big horn”) during the “Detroit Medley” helps brighten the dark ride even more.


Additionally, today’s Archive Series installment is the second to feature a performance from soundcheck as a bonus track — “Reason to Believe” is here, rehearsed at Joe Louis, but never performed in a show that year. For all those who continue to doubt what they’re sure of, keep listening after the show proper.

This report originally appeared at http://www.backstreets.com/news.html