Bruce Springsteen Brings the "Dream" To California

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off their Working on a Dream tour last night at San Jose, California's HP Pavilion. The set clocked in at two hours and 40 minutes according to Bruce fansite Backstreets, who also provided the night's set list (see below), and noted its similarity to the set the band rocked at their second Asbury Park rehearsal gig (Rolling Stone was at Springsteen's first rehearsal). For the story inside the Bruce rehearsals, grab the new issue (on newsstands now!), and check out our interviews with Steven Van Zandt and Max Weinberg's drummer son Jay, Springsteen's "secret weapon" online. Get a look at the opening-night photos here and the songs below:

• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Bring Their "Dream" To California

Set List:
"Badlands"
"Outlaw Pete"
"My Lucky Day"
"No Surrender"
"Out in the Street"
"Working on a Dream"
"Seeds"
"Johnny 99"
"The Ghost of Tom Joad"
"Good Eye"
"Good Rockin' Tonight"
"Darlington County"
"Growin' Up"
"Waitin' on a Sunny Day"
"The Promised Land"
"The Wrestler"
"Kingdom of Days"
"Radio Nowhere"
"Lonesome Day"
"Born to Run"

Encore:
"Hard Times"
"Thunder Road"
"Dancing in the Dark"
"Tenth Avenue Freeze-out"
"Land of Hope and Dreams"
"American Land"

Related Stories:

• Bruce Springsteen Artifacts Hit the Rock Hall: Video Tour of New Exhibit
• Ticketmaster Apologizes to Bruce Springsteen After Onsale Blunder
• Bruce Springsteen Announces Working on a Dream Tour

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

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