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The latest from the Bruce Springsteen archives comes to you from Omaha, NE on November 15, 2012. Stream this show, along with the full archival catalog, exclusively on nugs.net.

2025 tour is just a few months away, and pre-orders are available now for all shows! Don’t miss out!

ALL ABOARD, NEBRASKA’S OUR NEXT STOP

By Erik Flannigan

When Bruce Springsteen released his risk-taking acoustic masterpiece Nebraska in 1982, it sparked questions about its future in live performance. Would he tour the record solo? How would he perform its songs with the E Street Band?

The first answers came on the Born in the U.S.A. tour, when Springsteen featured a rotating handful of Nebraska songs each night, most gathered in a mini suite during the first half of the show. All ten tracks from the album eventually made their way to the set in band readings ranging from gently augmented (“My Father’s House,” “Used Cars”) to fully electrified (“Atlantic City”).

Springsteen would go on to play true solo versions of Nebraska material in concert, first at a pair of revelatory 1990 benefit shows in Los Angeles for the Christic Institute (available as part of the Live Archive series), and on both the Ghost of Tom Joad and Devils & Dust tours. The album remains his body of work most covered by other artists. As the subject of a forthcoming major motion picture centered around its creative origin story, the long-standing and deserved appreciation for Nebraska should only intensify.

Springsteen’s own arrangements of Nebraska songs have evolved in both band and solo incarnations. On the Reunion tour, led by Nils Lofgren’s pedal-steel guitar and Danny Federici’s accordion, “Mansion on the Hill” became a Nashville ballad. In 2005, Springsteen unleashed bullet-mic, blues sides of “Reason to Believe” and “Johnny 99.” 

Unexpectedly but appropriately, Springsteen’s deepest dive back into Nebraska came at a late 2012 stop on the Wrecking Ball tour. Rolling into Omaha for only their fifth show ever in the Cornhusker State, he placed six songs from the album in the set, the most in an E Street Band show since the ’80s. This one-off Nebraska showcase makes Omaha, November 15, 2012, a distinct performance and presents the opportunity to revisit how this seminal work has developed on the concert stage.

Walking out to a fitting recording of Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man,” Springsteen welcomes the CenturyLink Center faithful with a trio of Nebraska tunes, each radically different from the original master recordings. Attention is immediately captured as he sings and blows harmonica into a bullet microphone to launch “Reason to Believe.” This rocking band rendition first appeared on the Magic tour in 2007, an arrangement derived from the solo takes Bruce had done on the Devils & Dust tour.

The recharged “Reason to Believe” owes a small debt to Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited,” while Stevie Van Zandt’s guitar line is straight out of ZZ Top’s “La Grange.” Springsteen joyously surfs the bluesy vibe, chewing on lines like “that dog get up and run, ruun, ruun, ruuun.” As the horn section kicks in, Charlie Girodano sweeps his organ keys and Lofgren takes his own counterpoint solo to Van Zandt’s primary lick.

Barely a second passes before “Reason to Believe” yields to “Johnny 99” in a rollicking run powered by Max Weinberg’s drums, Roy Bittan’s honky-tonk piano and Van Zandt’s sympathetic backing vocals. The underlying rock arrangement of the song dates back as far as The Rising tour, though with the addition of the horns and percussion, the Wrecking Ball edition of “Johnny 99” proved even bouncier and brasher. More cowbell!

Omaha’s Nebraska triple shot wraps with what remains the greatest band interpretation of any of its songs: “Atlantic City.” The electric arrangement debuted to slacked jaws on opening night of the Born in the U.S.A. tour in St. Paul, Minnesota, back in June 1984. With its heavy beat, portentous chord strumming, and thrilling dynamics between verse and chorus, it has captivated audiences ever since.

Moreover, “Atlantic City” is that vital recurring number in Springsteen’s set that always seems to play for keeps. This night is no exception, with an extra-long crescendo before the last verse kicks in, sparked by Van Zandt’s mandolin picking and collective vocals that carry the chorus refrain through the song’s conclusion.

As the least played song from Nebraska, an appearance by “State Trooper” is special and a touch foreboding. For this take, Springsteen offers a hushed, moody vocal until he hits verse three and the dream state of those “wee wee hours,” where “your mind gets hazy.” Opting for his Gretsch electric guitar, he takes full advantage of its whammy bar to bend notes and twist chords, all of which combine for a seductively disconcerting solo performance. Omaha stands as the last version of “State Trooper” played to date.

Band and horns are back for “Open All Night” in a swinging arrangement that became a stalwart on the 2006 Seeger Sessions tour and popped up again in Omaha and a handful of other shows in 2012. Springsteen clearly enjoys this version, resurrecting it in stonking fashion to start an outstanding show at The Forum in Inglewood, California, in April 2024.

The last Nebraska song featured in Omaha is arguably the most intriguing: the first full-band “Highway Patrolman” since 1985. It drafts on the Born in the U.S.A. tour arrangement but distinguishes itself, with Soozie Tyrell on violin, Girodano on accordion, Lofgren on pedal steel and Van Zandt adding backing vocals to a song he has never performed on stage before.

Springsteen leads the way on acoustic guitar, picking the familiar melody but with a repeated low-string bass note that subtly changes the song’s tone, drifting towards “One Step Up” territory. It’s fascinating to hear how “Highway Patrolman” matured over three decades. Like “State Trooper,” it has yet to be performed again.

The other 20 tracks performed in Omaha more than hold their own. The five core songs from Wrecking Ball (“We Take Care of Our Own,” “Wrecking Ball,” “Death to My Hometown,” “Shackled and Drawn” and “Land of Hope and Dreams”) are played with spirit and vigor. There are truly fine takes of “Lost in the Flood,” “Trapped” (boasting strong saxophone work from Jake Clemons), and “Raise Your Hand” by sign request, and the first “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” of the season, a tour premiere. (The prior show, in St. Paul, another pick in the Live Archive series, featured its own remarkable premieres, “Stolen Car” and a full-band “Devils & Dust.”) 

But this Omaha night belonged to Nebraska: revisited, reimagined, and forever revered.

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The latest from the Bruce Springsteen archives comes to you from Vancouver, BC from 2005’s “Devils & Dust Tour.” Stream this show, along with the full archival catalog, exclusively on nugs.net.

2025 tour is just a few months away, and pre-orders are available now for all shows! Don’t miss out!

MAN ON WIRE

By Erik Flannigan

In a career as long as Bruce Springsteen’s, how does an artist continue to challenge himself? Writing new songs and exploring uncharted genres in the studio is one way. Throwing down the gauntlet to “stump the E Street Band” in concert is surely another, keeping folks on their toes and adding appealing spontaneity, but that was largely a test of muscle memory and each band member’s encyclopedic mental jukebox.

For 2005’s Devils & Dust tour, Springsteen designed the most demanding performance approach of his career: an intimate set centered around a new album of stripped-down, at times lyrically brazen, character-driven story songs; surrounded by an ever-changing catalog survey that increasingly eschewed the familiar for the obscure; played (often for the first time ever) on instruments ranging from banjo to pump organ.

And he did it by himself.

Vancouver, August 13, 2005 captures one of the more daring nights of Springsteen’s seven-month high-wire act. Though it’s the final date of his summer tour, his growing fearlessness is a big part of the attraction in both song selection and chosen arrangements, which is made clear from the jump as he opens with one of his best and least played songs since the ’90s, “Living Proof.”

After requesting “as much quiet as I can get” from his organ bench, Springsteen pumps a melodic drone out of the instrument, and each rich chord change offers a visceral wash of solemnity on top of which he sings about the joy and purpose unlocked by the birth of a child. Unlike theatre dates on the 2005 tour, for Vancouver he’s playing in a massive, cut-down hockey arena, making that organ swell sound even bigger.

Sonic exploration extends to “Reason to Believe,” sung into a bullet microphone to yield a disembodied vocal that wouldn’t sound out of place on the soundtrack to a film by the late, great David Lynch. The title track of his new album shifts the set back to center and Springsteen gives it a classic, singer-songwriter reading. The same approach carries “Lonesome Day,” which works brilliantly in solo acoustic form and he sings it with directed emotion. The last utterance of the title itself comes in a gritty, moving falsetto, a vocal technique he’ll revisit thrillingly a few songs later. 

Our troubadour moves off microphone to encourage the arena audience to lean in during “Long Time Comin’,” a fitting song for families, as Springsteen’s son Evan handles roadie duties in Vancouver. 

“Every night I’ve been trying to do something I haven’t done before” is a sentence hardcore fans long to hear, and with that, Springsteen delivers a true change up, “Because the Night” on electric piano. A storming rocker in the hands of the E Street Band turns moody and introspective here, an entrancing interpretation played for the first and only time on the tour. It’s one of the show’s many highlights.

Back on the grand piano, Springsteen honors a special request for “The Promise.” Unlike the others done on keys, it’s a track Springsteen has played by himself on piano before, notably early shows in 1978. As he settles on his tempo, a reflective rendition of the always welcome Darkness outtake takes shape. 

Sticking with piano, “The River” comes to a head like the beginning of a play’s second act, signaling to the theatre audience that there’s been a momentous change. “The River” and “The Promise” can be viewed as kindred ruminations on loss that took wildly different journeys: one became the centerpiece of a major album, the other waited more than 30 years to be resurrected back to significance by a box set.

To electric guitar for another gem of the evening, the eerie, slow-burning “State Trooper,” with Springsteen’s falsetto adding to its intrinsic disquiet. Nebraska’s scariest song conjures one of Lynch’s most indelible film images: the dark highway at night, illuminated only by the headlights of a car driving into the unknown. This is one of only 36 “State Trooper” performances ever.

Speaking of rarities, Tunnel of Love opener “Ain’t Got You” has only featured on two tours, 1988 and 2005. Springsteen takes it on a self-deprecating ride enlivened by guitar that gives the song a rootsy, ’50s feel. Rarer still, “Cynthia” makes one of its six appearances on the Devils & Dust tour and just 11 all time. Just prior to the closing lines, “You make me holler, yeah, yeah, alright,” Springsteen pays homage to song’s biggest influence, asking, “What did that guy say in that other song” before recalling, “oh yeah” followed by his own version of Roy Orbision’s signature vocal “hurrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”

Springsteen pairs one of his finest border stories, “The Line” from The Ghost of Tom Joad, with a song that carries those aforementioned “brazen” lyrics, “Reno.” Markedly different scenes to be sure, yet despite its provocative story, “Reno” shares an intertwined humanity with “The Line” as characters find themselves in compromising positions of their own creation.

“Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart” provides a sweet palette cleanser, played liltingly on electric piano, before the tone darkens for what is the last performance to date of “Paradise,” The Rising’s heartrending tale of a suicide bomber. Springsteen starts on electric piano, innocence still intact, then switches to piano to match the gravitas of the actions that follow, before closing on electric fleetingly in a riveting, elegiac performance. Masterful.

“Real World” seeks to restore our faith and though Bruce’s voice is breaking a little by this point, that only adds to the tenderness of the moment. On an evening of gorgeous piano performances, the underplayed classic is a standout.

With a wealth of deep cuts delivered, Springsteen brings the main set to a satisfying conclusion through “The Rising,” the riveting, 12-string Christic arrangement of “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” an amusing “What If” version of Jesus’ life as an intro to “Jesus Was An Only Son” and a quick “Two Hearts” before closing the set with a pair of character studies from Devils & Dust, one narrative (“The Hitter”), the other movingly impressionistic (“Matamoros Banks”).

For the encore, “Blinded By the Light” and “4th of July Asbury Park (Sandy)” transport the Vancity faithful from the west coast to the east before Springsteen draws the evening to a meditative close. “The Promised Land,” hypnotically rendered on acoustic guitar strings and body, sets the table for a return to the pump organ. “Dream Baby Dream” billows Saints Vega, Orbison and Lynch to the nosebleeds. Then, Springsteen, his work done for the evening and the summer, took his bow and walked off just as he’d entered that night, by himself.

Stream this archive release, plus hundreds of other Bruce Springsteen shows, when you start a free 7-day streaming trial to nugs.net.