LONDRES 2006 – WEMBLEY ARENA, LONDRES, INGLATERRA, 11 NOVIEMBRE 2006 – 3CD – OFICIAL SONIDO DEFINITIVO

WEMBLEY ARENA, LONDRES, INGLATERRA, 11 NOVIEMBRE 2006.

Editado de los archivos de Bruce Springsteen.

El sonido definitivo. 3CD oficiales.

Grabado por John Cooper. Mezclado por Jon Altschiller.

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La gira Seeger Sessions concluyó con una serie de maravillosos conciertos por Europa y el Reino Unido. Este concierto en Londres del 11 de noviembre de 2006 presenta el animado set de 23 canciones de Bruce y The Sessions Band de Wembley Arena y ofrece canciones que no aparecen en el lanzamiento del New Orleans Jazz Fest Archive o Live In Dublin, incluyendo «Devils & Dust» y el bis final «Froggie Went A Courtin’ «. Lo mejor de todo es el estreno mundial y la única aparición en la gira de «Long Walk Home», que debutó como un trabajo en progreso con letras alternativas y versos adicionales.

The Seeger Sessions tour wrapped with a string of marvelous shows across Europe and the UK. London 11/11/06 presents Bruce and The Sessions Band’s roisterous 23-song set from Wembley Arena and offers songs not featured in the New Orleans Jazz Fest Archive release or Live In Dublin including “Devils & Dust” and final encore “Froggie Went A Courtin’.” Best of all is the world premiere and only tour appearance of “Long Walk Home,” debuted as a work in progress with alternate lyrics and extra verses.

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT / OLD DAN TUCKER / ATLANTIC CITY / EYES ON THE PRIZE / JESSE JAMES / O MARY DON’T YOU WEEP / GROWIN’ UP / ERIE CANAL / MY OKLAHOMA HOME / DEVILS & DUST / MRS. McGRATH / HOW CAN A POOR MAN STAND SUCH TIMES AND LIVE? / JACOB’S LADDER / LONG TIME COMIN’ / JESUS WAS AN ONLY SON / OPEN ALL NIGHT / PAY ME MY MONEY DOWN / LONG WALK HOME / YOU CAN LOOK (BUT YOU BETTER NOT TOUCH) / WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN / THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE / AMERICAN LAND / FROGGIE WENT A COURTIN’

World premiere (and only tour performance) of a previously undocumented Springsteen composition introduced as «Gonna Be A Long Walk Home», which Bruce implies is still a ‘work-in-progress’. The song will be released on the 2007 Magic album as «Long Walk Home». «John Henry» is dropped from the set for the first and only time on the tour. Patti Scialfa is not present. Horn section is Baron-Manion-Ramm-Gayton.

Bruce Springsteen – Lead Vocal, Guitar, Harmonica; Sam Bardfeld – Violin; Art Baron – Tuba; Frank Bruno – Guitar, Vocals; Jeremy Chatzky – Bass; Larry Eagle – Drums; Clark Gayton – Trombone; Charles Giordano – B3 Organ, Piano, Accordion; Curtis King Jr. – Vocals; Greg Liszt – Banjo; Lisa Lowell – Vocals; Eddie Manion – Saxophone; Cindy Mizelle – Vocals; Curt Ramm – Trumpet; Marty Rifkin – Pedal Steel Guitar; Marc Anthony Thompson – Vocals; Soozie Tyrell – Violin, Vocals
Recorded by John Cooper
Mixed by Jon Altschiller from multi-track masters; Additional engineering by Danielle Warman
Mastered by Jon Altschiller
Post Production by Brad Serling and Micah Gordon
Artwork Design by Michelle Holme; Cover photo by Danny Clinch
Tour Director: George Travis
Jon Landau Management: Jon Landau, Barbara Carr, Jan Stabile and Alison Oscar
HD Files are 24 bit / 48 kHz – DSD files are DSD64

Gonna Be A Long Walk Home

Bruce Springsteen and The Sessions Band

Wembley Arena, London, England

November 11, 2006

By Erik Flannigan

How should we view the Seeger Sessions tour in the context of Bruce Springsteen’s storied performance history? Incredibly, 14 years have already passed since the arrival of the album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions and the tour that followed. That’s roughly the same amount of time as between Bruce’s early 1970 Steel Mill audition for Bill Graham in San Francisco and the release of Born in the U.S.A. (Join me in an unspoken but no less mortified “Yikes!”)

Springsteen’s foray into traditional music is named in homage to legendary folk-music activist Pete Seeger, with whom he had a fond relationship. Bruce was on tour in South Africa when Seeger passed in 2014 at the age of 94. “I lost a great friend and hero last night,” Bruce told the crowd. “We’re humbled to be here tonight in the land of Mandela, a great freedom fighter. We are here tonight in his grace, because he made it possible for us to be here. Pete, back home, was a very courageous freedom fighter also.”

We Shall Overcome surveys the kind of American folk standards popularized by Seeger. The project’s musical approach is often full-on hootenanny, with Bruce backed by a large, loose ensemble of musicians playing with instinct, spontaneity, and just the right amount of reverence. The Sessions Band tour followed a similar blueprint, expanding song selections to include additional folk and roots classics, as well as Springsteen originals re-arranged in kindred styles.

Whether you love folk music or merely appreciate its importance and influence, Bruce’s live performances of that music with this band were undeniably infectious and entertaining. Part of that was down to the man himself seeming as happy as he had ever been on stage, energized by painting with a completely different palette, performing with new companions and a few friendly faces.

The Seeger Sessions album and tour happened in the midst of a fruitful period for Bruce, who released and toured behind Devils & Dust the year before, and would issue and tour in support of Magic a year later and beyond, followed quickly by the same game plan for Working on a Dream. It was an impressive flurry of activity, and because Seeger Sessions was a one-off, perhaps it hasn’t received a deserved reappreciation.

We know it remains near and dear to Bruce. Earlier this year he blessed the YouTube release of the entire New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival performance from April 2006, the first show of the Seeger Sessions tour and one Springsteen cites in this autobiography as among his most meaningful shows ever.

Jazz Fest was also released in the Archive series, providing a fine document of the tour’s early stages. The official Live in Dublin culls highlights from three shows at the end of the tour. To those bookends we add London 11/11/06, which offers the first complete performance from the end of the Seeger run and includes a number of setlist variations to New Orleans and Dublin.

We commence with a show-opening throwback to Bruce’s first single, “Blinded By the Light.” When Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. was released in early 1973, more than a few critics characterized it as folk rock, making its inclusion here all the more fitting. That being said, while I’m no musicologist, the style in which it is performed here suggests File Under Klezmer.

The first half of the London show offers a satisfying mix of high-spirited songs from the album (“Old Man Tucker,” “Jesse James,” “Mrs. McGrath”), some of its weightier material (“Eyes on the Prize,” “Erie Canal,” “O Mary Don’t You Weep”) and Seegerized, story-rich Springsteen originals.

To wit: “Atlantic City” is transformed into a murder ballad rave-up; “Growin’ Up” is appealingly re-arranged with country flourishes and a bit of Dylan influence, too; and “Open All Night” gets something of a juke-joint makeover. The new arrangements cast all three in fresh light that expands our appreciation for each song. “Devils & Dust (which does not appear on the New Orleans or Dublin releases) hues closer to the original arrangement, but it draws upon the chorus of voices in the Sessions band, led by Curtis King and Soozie Tyrell, yielding a beautiful and poignant result.

Late in the show, Springsteen thanks the crowd for “taking a chance on [our] experiment here,” his characterization of the entire Seeger Sessions project. On this night he took that spirit one step further by debuting a brand new song.

The night before his first London show, Springsteen went to see Lucinda Williams play at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, joining her on stage for two songs. Inspired by her performance of unreleased material, the next night Bruce pulls out one of his own work-in-progress originals, introduced as “Gonna Be a Long Walk Home.”

“She was brave because she played all these new songs,” Springsteen tells the Wembley audience. “Between my whoring and drinking, when I come home after that, I sit up in the hotel room occasionally and I try to write.”

The premiere of “Long Walk Home,” a one-off on the 2006 tour, features a number of lyric variations and extra lines compared to the version eventually released on Magic a year later. The final verse of this unique performance includes a sober couplet on the state of America that feels even more relevant today: “Now the water’s rising ’round the corner, there’s a fire burning out of control / There’s a hurricane on Main Street and I’ve got murder in my soul.”

That kind of risk-taking and the enthusiasm for reinterpreting one’s own work are hallmarks of the Seeger Sessions tour, as is the pure, unbridled joy of the performances. London 11/11/06 captures those qualities marvelously.