Today and tomorrow are the busiest travel days of the year. We’ve created a playlist for nugs.net subscribers to keep everyone truckin’ along on their way to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast. It’s packed with live versions of classic hits that the whole car can enjoy.
Clocking in at two hours, The Thanksgiving Road Trip playlist is filled with the music of Springsteen, The Dead, The Allman Brothers Band, and more road trip staples. Of course, no road trip playlist would be complete without a little country. There’s Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, John Denver, and more providing that classic American road trip atmosphere. And finally, the playlist features incredible covers from Greensky Bluegrass, Tauk, and Goose. It’s the perfect accompaniment for the open road.
The year is rapidly coming to a close. Fall tours are ending and many artists will take a few weeks off to rest, reflect, and prepare for a new year of music. Before we charge into a new decade, we’re taking a look back at some of our favorite shows from 2019.
Dopapod is back with another massive drop of new shows. The Dopapod catalog on nugs.net has nearly doubled with this latest collection. There are tons of unique performances to explore from 2011 to 2019. Every show is available for individual download or you can stream all 200+ shows in the nugs.net app. Don’t know where to start with the new shows? We’ve got you covered with some highlights:
2019 was a busy year in the Bruce Springsteen archival series. This year’s releases spanned from 1978 to 2012. These performances highlight Springsteen’s vast and varied career. You can listen to shows with the full E Street Band or check out The Boss solo. Venues range from stadiums to theatres everywhere from New York to California. This year’s archives included fan favorites like the famous Bridge School Benefit show in ’86 with Danny Federici and Nils Lofgren and the legendary Piece De Resistance, Passaic ’78. There are tons of shows to explore for Bruce fans new and old.
The final U.S. stop on the Tunnel of Love tour is a powerful showcase for the album along with rare Springsteen originals and covers. Bolstering core Tunnel tracks are non-album gems “Be True,” “Seeds,” “Part Man, Part Monkey” and “Light of Day,” while Bruce taps his R&B, rock, blues and folk roots for covers of John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom,” The Sonics’ “Have Love, Will Travel,” Jackie Wilson’s “Lonely Teardrops” and even a couple verses of Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild.” Plus, a soundcheck bonus track cover of Ed Townsend’s “For Your Love.”
Equal parts concert and Irish wake, Tampa 2008 celebrates the life of founding E Street Band member Dan Federici, who passed away five days earlier. With heavy hearts, Bruce and the band perform a charged, emotional set that blends key tracks from Magic and songs selected with Phantom Dan in mind, including the tour premiere of “Growin’ Up,” a rare, show-opening “Backstreets,” “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” and a cathartic, one-off performance of the gospel standard, “I’ll Fly Away.”
Bruce brings the Devils & Dust solo tour to an unforgettable conclusion with a setlist that pulls out all the stops for the final show in Trenton. From an instrumental cover of the late Link Wray’s “Rumble” to start, through rare solo outings of “Empty Sky,” “Fire,” “Drive All Night,” “All That Heaven Will Allow,” “Thundercrack” and “Santa Claus is Coming’ to Town,” Trenton 2005 teems with surprises, none more so than “Zero and Blind Terry” on piano (not performed since 1974) and the pre-Greetings original “Song for Orphans,” released here for the first time.
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the site of two Olympic Games, provides a fitting backdrop to the last lap of the Born In The U.S.A. tour. On opening night of the final four shows, in front 83,000 fans, Bruce & The E Street Band hit their stadium-tour zenith with a powerhouse performance that mixes road-tested versions of “Seeds,” “Atlantic City,” “I’m Goin’ Down,” and “Glory Days” with risk-taking world premieres of Edwin Starr’s “War” and the beloved b-side, “Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart.”
Performing with his new band in front of eager hometown fans, Springsteen goes the extra mile in this spirited set showcasing Human Touch and Lucky Town along with a few special treats. New Jersey 1992 delivers 13 songs from the two albums, from “Living Proof” and “Souls Of The Departed” to “Real Man” and “All Or Nothin’ At All.” It also features the tour’s only performance of the gospel gem “Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won’t Do)” showcasing the background singers, plus a unique solo-to-band arrangement of “Open All Night” that hilariously updates the turnpike tale.
On a long, special night that rolled into his 63rd birthday the following day, Bruce dials up a spirited, 34-song set brimming with Wrecking Ball material; tour premieres for “Cynthia” and a moving “Into The Fire”; the first “In The Midnight Hour” since New Year’s Eve 1980; a rare coupling of “Meeting Across The River” into “Jungleland”; “Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart,” “Downbound Train” and “It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City”; plus special guest Gary U.S. Bonds on “Jolé Blon” and “This Little Girl.”
Night two of the legendary three-show stand at Nassau Coliseum 1980 is a barnstormer. It features the tour premiere of “Night” as the opener and, in its lone River tour performance, an extraordinary “Incident On 57th Street” into “Rosalita” to close the set. Spanning 35 songs, Nassau 12/29 beautifully blends deep River cuts (“Stolen Car,” “Wreck on the Highway,” “Point Blank”), seasonal nuggets (“Merry Christmas Baby” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and fan favorites (“Fire,” “Because the Night”), making it one of the finest shows of the tour.
Bruce’s performance at the inaugural Bridge School Benefit Concert marked his first major appearance since the end of the BIUSA tour and his first acoustic set in over a decade. An astonishing a cappella take of “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)” opens, followed by the debut of the stripped down “Born In The U.S.A.” Danny Federici and Nils Lofgren then join in for a sublime set that includes “Seeds,” “Darlington County,” “Mansion On The Hill,” “Fire,” “Follow That Dream” and “Hungry Heart” with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. $2 from each sale goes to The Bridge School. Dedicated to Elliot Roberts (1943-2019).
The most famous Springsteen bootleg of all time, Piece De Resistance, comes to the live archive series as Passaic 9/19/78, newly mixed from Plangent Processed multi-track master tapes. As originally broadcast up and down the Eastern seaboard, the first night of three at the Capitol Theatre may be the definitive Darkness tour document and features “Streets Of Fire,” “Independence Day,” “Prove It All Night,” “Meeting Across The River,” “Kitty’s Back,” “Fire,” “Because The Night” “Point Blank” and “Raise Your Hand.” This beloved live performance has never sounded better.
A consensus pick as one of the best nights on the Reunion tour, Los Angeles 10/23/99 brings it wire to wire, from the show-opening invocation “Meeting In The Town Tonight” into “Take ‘Em As They Come” through the rare, delightful closer “Blinded By The Light.” Other highlights of this peak Reunion set include “The Ties That Bind,” “Darkness On The Edge Of Town,” “The Promised Land,” “Incident On 57th Street,” “For You,” “Backstreets” “Light Of Day” (detouring briefly for a romp through “California Sun”) and the first solo piano version of “The Promise” in a formal concert since 1978.
Making his first full concert appearance in Asbury Park since the ’70s, Springsteen brings the Joad tour to where it all began. Accordingly, Bruce unfurls a Shore-centric set that opens with a three-song blast from Greetings: “Blinded By The Light,” “Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street” and “Growin’ Up.” With sympathetic support from Danny Federici, Patti Scialfa and Soozie Tyrell, Bruce moves through apropos surprises (“Wild Billy’s Circus Story,” “Rosalita” and “Sandy”), moving rarities (“When You’re Alone” and “Shut Out The Light”) and wonderful takes of “Racing In The Street” and “Independence Day” among many highlights.
Dead & Company’s Fall Fun Run mini-tour was a roaring success. The band performed a trio of two-night runs in New York City, Uniondale, and Hampton. When a tour kicks off on Halloween night, you know you’re in for a treat. We’ve recapped some of our favorite highlights from the six shows below. Every show from the Fall Fun Run is available now to download or stream on nugs.net!
Robert Hunter Tribute Setlist
Halloween was the first show the band had played since Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter passed away. To honor Hunter, the band packed the setlist with songs written by the legendary wordsmith. The tribute performance included “Ripple” as a rare show-opening song for the band. The entire show is filled with Hunter’s work including “Tennessee Jed,” “They Love Each Other,” and “Terrapin Station.”
Werewolves in Madison Square Garden
It wouldn’t be a proper Halloween show without at least one ghostly cover. Dead & Company closed out the show with an amazing cover of “Werewolves of London.” It was the perfect cap on a spectacularly spooky night. Amongst the Halloween thrills, The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon was in the crowd for his first-ever Dead show with Bravo’s Andy Cohen.
Maggie Rogers Joins During Night Two at MSG
The band brought out Maggie Rogers to join on vocals for a pair of tunes during their second night at The Garden. Rogers first emerged near the end of the first set for “Friend of the Devil.” It was one of our favorite versions of the Dead classic in recent memory and Rogers brings something really special to the mix. Rogers returned after the second set to join on the band’s encore-favorite “The Weight,” again shining on vocals.
Record-Setting at Nassau
Grateful Dead and Dead & Company were honored by Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum for their combined 44 shows at the stadium, the most anyone has ever played the historic venue in Uniondale, NY. A tie-dye adorned banner was hoisted in the Coliseum to celebrate the record.
“Space” on The Mothership
The tour came to a close in Hampton, Virginia with a pair of shows at the Hampton Coliseum, colloquially known as The Mothership. Counter to the Dead’s deep history with Nassau, this was actually the band’s first-ever performance at The Mothership. The band celebrated with a pair of spacey posters.
“Ripple” Bookends the Tour
Just as the tour began, the final show of the Fall Fun Run closed with “Ripple.” It was a nice bookend on an exciting tour. There was a theme of juxtaposition on this tour as we honored old friends and made new ones, returned to a venue full of history and played one for the first time. Still, through the flux of life and time, the songs endure. Ripple, like all of the Grateful Dead’s music, remains constant. The music never stopped.
Star Kitchen is one of our favorite new projects. The band is the brainchild of The Disco Biscuits’ Marc Brownstein and Eric Krasno Band’s Danny Mayer. The supergroup also includes Rob Marscher and Marlon Lewis. Their performances explore the music of Stevie, Jimi, James, & more in new and interesting ways. We sat down with the band to talk about their shows on nugs.net and more.
Q: Tell us about the hidden gems in these releases. Do you have a stand out track or show from the batch?
Star Kitchen: I really love the Boat Cruise show in NYC. It was the first time that the band played as a four-piece without any guests at all, and it was a benchmark moment for the band. We hadn’t had the confidence to pull off a whole show without the help of some special treats along the way, but it was great. We pulled it off with a very small crowd, but huge energy. It has become our go-to recording to listen to in the van.
Q: What inspired you to start a funk forward project over all else?
SK: Really, the thing that inspired me to start this project was the Sharon Jones and the Dap King’s holiday album. Every year that is the go-to in my house. The songs are dope, and the band is the best. Ultimately, it brought me back to listening to funk in general, and I went through a deep stage of dissecting Greyboy All-stars jams. Then I went further back and started relearning all of the James Brown grooves and Aretha Franklin classics; and of course, I made a James Jamerson playlist and started playing along with that. I didn’t know how to make a funk band happen, but just as with everything, the universe did deliver this time.
Q: What are your hopes for how a new listener feels when they leave a Star Kitchen show?
SK: I feel like I want them to say, oh ok, I get it, it’s funk, but also it’s not. We are taking these songs that everyone has heard thousands of times, and many that you’ve never heard, and stretching them like rubber bands, as far as we can, in every direction. Recently, someone came up to me and said, “wow that reminded me a lot of what JGB used to be,” and I was like, this guy gets it. We are taking funk and soul tunes, and then taking everything we know from being experts in improvisation and applying it to those songs in our own way. That’s what JGB used to do, and that’s what this ended up being, not by accident. I am always the most influenced by the patriarch of the jamband scene.
Three decades on, one can underestimate the significance of the Ghost of Tom Joad tour. Fans had been talking about the prospect of a solo acoustic tour since Nebraska, a dream reinforced by the Bridge School appearance in 1986 and the sublime sets Springsteen turned in at the Christic Institute concerts in 1990. (The Bridge and Christic shows are available for download as part of the live archive series.) But it would be another five years for Bruce to go it alone for real, starting his first solo tour in December 1995 and continuing well into 1997.
Not only was he playing on sans band, but he was performing in theaters the size of which he hadn’t seen since the Darkness tour. The period is also notable for the debuts of several original songs (e.g. “It’s the Little Things That Count” and “There Will Never Be Any Other for Me But You”) in a set that grew more exploratory in assaying Bruce’s back catalog as the tour carried on.
Then came a series of remarkable hometown bookings. In November 1996, Bruce played his old high school, St. Rose of Lima, in Freehold, NJ (also available in the live download series). Later that month, a three-show stand at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park, which was not only the namesake of his debut album, but the city whose clubs had served as a finishing school for the young musician and his future bandmates. Based on available information, Springsteen had not played Freehold in the E Street Band era, and he hadn’t done a proper concert in Asbury Park since sometime in 1973.
Given the so-called trilogy of recent projects looking back at his life (the book Born to Run, Springsteen on Broadway and Western Stars), one could suggest the November 1996 Shore shows were the first steps in literally revisiting his history.
Armed with that awareness, the first thing Bruce says as he takes the Paramount Theatre stage is, “Greetings, from Asbury Park.” We’re treated to three tracks from the album: a shambolic “Blinded By the Light,” plus lively takes of “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?” and “Growin’ Up.”
“What the hell was I thinking about when I wrote all that stuff?” he asks with a hearty laugh as he wraps the trio. One likeable hallmark of the Joad tour is an unmistakable streak of humor, darker in tone and language, that seemed to intentionally contrast with a more earnest persona that had become the de facto depiction of our hero.
When someone shouts for “Mary Queen of Arkansas,” Bruce’s candor is priceless. “No. I ain’t gonna be playing that tonight. I tried to play that at home a few nights ago, and I couldn’t figure out what it’s about.”
The top of the show is appealingly loose but turns more meaningful with a distinctive reading of “Independence Day.” The song’s only tour performance is lightly Joad-ified and resolute, as the protagonist tells the tale with wistful distance and perspective. The 12-string “Darkness on the Edge of Town” is captivating as always, and “Johnny 99” is excellent — it, too, carries a tinge of reflection.
All four Shore shows featured supplemental musicians, and this night showcased the critical contributors: Danny Federici, Patti Scialfa and Soozie Tyrell. Phantom Dan sneaks on stage appropriately in a rare outing for “Wild Billy’s Circus Story,” while Soozie and Patti bring one of those aforementioned deep cuts to life in an exquisite version of the criminally underplayed “When You’re Alone” from Tunnel of Love. The deceptively simple rumination on the loss of love remains as poignant as ever.
Staying in the hidden gems lane, all three contribute to one of Springsteen’s songwriting masterpieces, the “Born in the U.S.A.” b-side “Shut Out the Light.” Introduced as a song he wrote shortly after Nebraska, “Shut Out the Light” pulls another narrative thread on returning Vietnam veterans and the war they brought home with them. Bruce recalls the draft board in Asbury Park in the late ’60s and acknowledges his luck in getting out (a story told in greater detail in his autobiography) as he introduces a song about someone who wasn’t as lucky.
The homestretch of the set sticks to the established and powerful Joad-tour core, including “Born in the U.S.A.,” “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” and “Sinaloa Cowboys.” But Bruce makes one fascinating and to some degree unlikely inclusion, placing “Racing in the Street” between “The Line” and “Across the Border.” Not unlike the earlier performance of “Independence Day,” “Racing” carries subtle notes of retrospection and world weariness as it rides Soozie Tyrell’s melancholy violin. It’s not a long rendition like it would be in the hands of the E Street Band, but composed, potent, and unique to this tour.
Every live version of “Across the Border” and the story which precedes it truly capture the heart of Tom Joad. Bruce movingly recounts seeing John Ford’s movie Grapes of Wrath and the moments in the film that so deeply affected him, calling out specific scenes and camera framing with a director’s eye and quoting key lines of dialogue that form a sort of outline for the questions Bruce explores on the album and tour.
For the encore, the mood turns upbeat, starting with “Working on the Highway” and continuing with a fine “This Hard Land,” again featuring Danny Federici on accordion. Of course Danny returns two songs later as well for Bruce’s ultimate boardwalk homage, “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” introduced with a sweet remembrance of the music scene and players that were there from the beginning. What comes in between is the tour debut of “Rosalita,” in a highly uncommon acoustic arrangement that makes up in liveliness what it lacks in musicality.
We end with the powerfully reimagined “The Promised Land.” While “Dream Baby Dream” was more of a pure mantra in the same set position on the Devils & Dust tour, “The Promised Land” a la Joad is a hymnal, too. Bruce’s acoustic guitar thump serves as the rhythm track propelling a reinterpretation that transports the song from exaltation to something more humanistic.
In the two nights that followed, Springsteen was joined by more guests and debuted a host of other rarities as the tone shifted ever more festive. But at his first show in Asbury Park in more than 30 years, recognition of a return to the place of origin is a compelling presence in nearly every song.
