The latest exclusive release from the Bruce Springsteen Live Archive Series comes from Capitol Theatre in Sydney, Australia on February 12, 1997.
Check out archivist Erik Flannigan’s essay on this performance below, then give this must-listen show a spin. CDs and Hi-Res downloads are now available for order, or stream Springsteen’s entire archival concert catalog plus the latest with a nugs subscription.
Where There’s A Fight Against The Blood And Hatred In The Air
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Tower Theater, Upper Darby, PA on Dec 31, 1975.
By Erik Flannigan
Any reasonable interpretation of Bruce Springsteen’s disparate activities in the year 1995 could only lead one to conclude that he had reached a point where he didn’t know what the hell he wanted to do or where he wanted to go musically. That is, until the release of The Ghost of Tom Joad. Suddenly, everything came into focus and boy did he lock in. One might even say he never let go.
The Joad tour began in late 1995, crossed much of 1996, and was extended again into the first half of 1997, which included a ten-show Australian run and this fine fifth and final show in Sydney. Springsteen stayed on the road for two simple reasons: he immensely enjoyed the solo experience and the subject matter he was performing night after night. So much so that he continued writing songs in the Joad milieu during the tour: those songs would appear years later on Devils & Dust as well as on Tracks 2.
While the first leg of the Joad tour had a purity of purpose in bringing his new songs to the stage, the February 12 show in Sydney is equally fascinating for different reasons. The last time Australians had seen Springsteen on stage was peak Born in the U.S.A., 12 years prior. In 1997, he looked different, played by himself, and told the audience to shut up when they shouted requests.
That wasn’t all.
Springsteen’s confessional candor, a hallmark of Joad shows, was there to shock. Declaring himself an ambassador of cunnilingus and a frequent Freehold masturbator are but two buzzing examples that drove a figurative bulldozer into the pedestal upon which his previous persona stood. But there was a deeper and more important purpose: to make clear that we’re all only human, even global superstars.
Empathy requires humanity and the stories on Joad challenge us to apply a “there but for the grace of God go I” filter to its characters and their choices. In bringing those songs and like-minded ones to the Sydney stage, Springsteen presented a snapshot of marginalized America, and in doing so held up a mirror reflecting our values as Americans, Australians, or any global citizen: Who are we as a country? What do we stand for? What are the truths we hold to be self-evident?
By way of answers, Springsteen opens the show with Woody Guthrie’s “Tom Joad,” which recounts the story of the film The Grapes of Wrath, based on the book by John Steinbeck, and later performs his own song “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” While their songwriting narratives are distinct, the two compositions spiritually coalesce in the final verses with a pledge by the narrator “be there” on the front lines against injustice.
This moving Sydney performance doubles as a timely reminder of Springsteen’s origin story through its songs and, perhaps even more powerfully, what he says between them, which comes in at well over 3000 words — a lot, even by his heady standards.
In early Joad shows, Springsteen largely shared the backstories to the new songs he was playing. But by the time the tour got to Australia, he complemented songwriting explanations with more personal anecdotes, some funny, some bawdy, and one that sheds prescient light on present events.
He begins by talking about growing up in a household that wasn’t a haven for art or culture, save for the music that came through his mother’s kitchen radio. Young Springsteen fell in love with those songs and the suggestion of possibility they provided, but a deeper sense of purpose came later.
“The song I started tonight with was ‘Tom Joad’ by Woody Guthrie. He wrote the song after seeing the movie [The Grapes of Wrath] back when it first came out. There was something in that film and in the book… the Steinbeck novel, that sort of provided me with the other piece to the puzzle: if there’s this world out there… that’s worth having, what are you gonna make of it when you get out there?… How are you gonna direct your energies?… That book sort of had [an] old-fashioned sense of heroism in it. The character risked what he had for an idea that was bigger than he was, and that’s the idea that people are connected, whether you always wanna cough to that idea or not…. [And] if that’s true, there’s some innate… basic responsibility everybody has to one another. That film and novel really stayed with me and has resonated throughout the rest of my life. It gave me an idea.”
At the Vietnam Veterans benefit concert in Los Angeles on August 20, 1981, Springsteen recalled seeing Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show and said, after watching the performance, “I want to be just… like… that.” Seeing and reading The Grapes of Wrath provided the companion to complete his credo: “I remember as the credits rolled,” he told the Sydney audience. “I sat there and said, “That´s what I want….That’s the kind of work I wanna do.” He said all this as the introduction to “Across the Border,” a song about immigrants dreaming of a better life across the border to the north.
In the winter of ’26, Springsteen heeded the kindred words both he and Guthrie penned, inspired by Steinbeck’s great American novel and the film made from it.
Mom, wherever there’s a cop beating a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me, Mom, I’ll be there
Wherever men are fightin’ for their rights,
That’s where I’m a-gonna be, Ma.
Sydney was hardly the only show where Springsteen connected these dots, but it remains the only occasion where he played Guthrie’s “Tom Joad” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” Previous performances of the latter had excluded the former. But on this night in Sydney, he chose to make it a double shot and leave no ambiguity about fulfilling his pledge.
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