Live Archive: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Oakland, CA, October 28, 1999

Setlist: ADAM RAISED A CAIN / PROVE IT ALL NIGHT / TWO HEARTS / THE PROMISED LAND / ATLANTIC CITY / MANSION ON THE HILL / INDEPENDENCE DAY / YOUNGSTOWN / MURDER INCORPORATED / BADLANDS / OUT IN THE STREET / TENTH AVENUE FREEZE-OUT / WORKING ON THE HIGHWAY / THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD / SINALOA COWBOYS / BACKSTREETS / LIGHT OF DAY / HUNGRY HEART / RAMROD / BORN TO RUN / THUNDER ROAD / IF I SHOULD FALL BEHIND / LAND OF HOPE AND DREAMS / BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

An official archive release

Three nights in Oakland at the old arena, three different opening numbers. Night one it was “My Love Will Not Let You Down,” night two was “The Ties That Bind,” and the last night was for the diehards: “Adam Raised A Cain,” but not just any “Adam,” an “Adam” that’s guaranteed to bring you back to Winterland in 1978 whether you were pressed up against the stage or only experienced it through the magic of FM radio or later, the tapes that passed from hand to hand to hand around the Bay Area and across the country. Those opening cuts, threaded together, tell a story that you don’t have to be a scholar to decipher. 

You also don’t need any advanced knowledge to understand the guitar as it opens this version of “Adam Raised A Cain” to know that you’re about to have your hair lit on fire. I was there that night and I remember it with great fondness, but I did not remember it being this completely fucking insane. In my defense, I’m never not going to be out of my mind with happiness to have this particular song in the set, especially in pole position. My first Reunion show was August 6 at CAA and that was the opener and I took it as a personal omen. (It was also the first time that Bruce had ever used “Adam” as a set opener. There’s a reason for that!)

Tonight in Oakland, “Adam” begins with the world-building, the noise-gathering, the pronouncement, a mighty noise indeed -- but once it starts, Bruce is already pouncing on the strings. And when he steps to the mic, his voice is warm and full-throated. He is declaring, he is declaiming, get out of the fucking way, do not try to stop him. The Lost Boys are shouting in the chorus in the background, they are urging him on, and then we get to the first guitar break and the whole thing goes up in smoke. 

I sometimes wonder to myself why certain shows make it to the Archive release and in this case I imagine Bruce receiving it, putting it on, and halfway through "Adam" saying, “Yeah, we’re good, let’s go with this,” big smile on his face.

In the bridge where everyone is chanting, arms in the air, Bruce even adds some additional YEAHHhhhhhhhhhh, a little bit of punctuation, an excited utterance - which then pumps him up for the last chorus, which is raw and a little bit of untethered. Listen for Roy in the background with the melody, just underneath the surface. 

If you thought you could catch a breather with “Prove It All Night,” you would be dead wrong. The Bruce/SVZ harmonies are sweet, Steve is matching his intensity. “Come on now, baby,” Bruce declares just under the melody, as the Big Man comes forward for his solo. The audience applauds with a little extra relish, but no one knows what’s coming. Wait for the closing tradeoff between the Bruce and Steve and you will want to pinch yourself, especially if you were not old enough to have been seeing shows in 1978. (I saw one. I still pinched myself at this point.) 

Oh wait, is there also a guitar solo coming up? It is fluid and loose and full of motion and energy, and then when you think Bruce has settled into it he takes it up another notch – but with the greatest amount of self-control he still cues the band earlier than you think he will – a lesser guitarist would have just kept going – and the whole thing comes sharply to a close.

“Two Hearts” motors, this thing is driving, you can hear Roy burbling just underneath the melody, the harmonies are, once again, stunning and the “It Takes Two” callback is well deserved (and perfectly executed). An incredibly solid and well-delivered “The Promised Land” features fantastic response from the Bay Area audience. “Atlantic City” is almost a little too vigorous? I mean – it’s great! I love it! Play it every night! But he needed to drop the throttle back on the vocal delivery here, just the tiniest bit. 

It’s worthwhile to put this gig in context: This is the second leg of the Reunion tour, or more accurately, the first U.S. leg. There were the opening 10 dates in early August at the Meadowlands before the band headed out for a proper U.S. tour, in most cases playing multiple dates in each city. They had just played four dates in Los Angeles at the Staples Center before their arrival in the Bay Area. In January, Bruce Springsteen – but not the E Street Band – was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It had already been quite a year on E Street.

I was in Oakland this Thursday night because of Neil Young’s Bridge School concerts happening over the weekend. That year featured Pearl Jam and the Who (among others. You can go look it up), and everyone was sure Bruce was going to show – which was not out of the realm of possibility (Pete Townshend made a surprise appearance at my first Bridge in 1996 because the Who were in San Jose that night) but it would have made my head completely explode. 

From “Atlantic City,” we do get a breather in the form of “Mansion On The Hill” and “Independence Day.” If it’s been a minute since you listened to a Reunion-era show, “Mansion” had a pretty consistent spot on the setlist, and it was also consistently the song during which seemingly half the arena filed out for a beer run, while Bruce and Patti deliver their best Johnny & June moment. It is truly gorgeous. The crowd’s anticipatory response when they recognize the initial intro to “Independence Day” is lovely, and even if this isn’t your favorite moment in a Springsteen show, this is, like everything that preceded it, a stunning performance. Roy Bittan is always a blessing and tonight he infuses the notes with gravity, and Nils’ pedal steel is perfectly balanced. It’s not the “Independence Day” of The River* and it’s definitely not similar to 1978, but it definitely feels like the expression of a 50 year old man looking back at his relationship with his father.

You are probably never going to hear a more fervent expression of “Youngstown” than this one. I pulled out a bunch of versions to check this assertion and am fairly comfortable with it, but would also invite you to offer your own nominations because we’d have an insane collection of deeply heartfelt renditions. Listen to Bruce stretching out his voice in that last chorus before Nils’ guitar solo, always a top highlight of any E Street Band show in any era, but here, tonight, it sure sounds like Nils took that last chorus from his employer as a personal challenge and proceeds to burn the fucking place down. 

The segue from “Youngstown” into “Murder, Incorporated” on Reunion remains one of my favorite memories, the focused intensity of the former into that moment where E Street swings into a groove and you’d try to find the other people in your section that were absolutely ready to get down. The guitar work here is also matching everything else that’s been going on. By the time the band swings into “Badlands” it’s almost like a respite compared to everything that’s come before it. I was not a fan of the endless “Badlands” even back then and it has not aged any better. It’s 14 minutes long here and I just want to end the crowd participation and get to the moment where Bruce and Steve are mugging at each other as they step up to the mic together. And I forgot about the reprise, where it seems like it’s done but instead we get another minute and a half. (Hearing "Badlands" neat, as it were, was one of the many joys of the full album Darkness shows.)

“Put on your best dress baby and darling, fix your sherrrr up right.” I have no idea what is going on here. “Out In The Street” is in its more-or-less usual spot but again, compared to the beginning of the show, it’s being performed at 10 instead of 11. He will need any of the energy he’s preserving because next is “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and I am grateful that Steve’s scratch guitar, always and forever one of my top E Street Band moments, is high in the mix. If you hadn’t been at a Reunion show or watched Live In New York City you would probably wonder what’s going on during this endless intro. 

I could complain about how long this song goes on -- it is 38 minutes long tonight -- but instead I just remember what it felt like to hear this song again for the first time, at the beginning of August when suddenly we all had tickets in our hands that read BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND. It was an out-of-body experience to hear that opening riff, to listen for each cue, to hear Steve’s guitar come in, and the theater of Bruce walking side to side to hype up a crowd that did not need much encouragement. 

You’re gonna break that thing, baby. I can feel the spirit…I can feel the spirit now…I said I can feel the spirit…I can feel the spirit now….I feel it coming into me…I feel…possessed not by the ghost, the ghost of Tom Joad, no, the…the ghost of Tom Jones. *cues the band*

[SIDEBAR: My niece was born in 1999, about a month before the CAA shows. My sister’s first time away from the baby was when I took her to the 8/7 show at the Meadowlands. I mention this because my sister would play Live In New York City in the car and one day my niece was talking to her toys about how “we all need some HELP” (to be fair it came out more like “need some HEP”) and it was exactly as adorable as it sounds like. She’s in medical school now and about to apply to residencies. She is not and has never been a Bruce Springsteen fan, and neither of us consider that a failure. Kids should have their own music and find it in their own way.]

~ We’re not even halfway through 10th ~

It is actually kind of amazing that he just showed his whole ass in the “Tenth Ave.” speech, 17 years before the memoir and the Broadway show. Like he got up on stage in front of god and everybody and talked about how he couldn’t commit:

“I found myself, as a young man, one evening, I was standing before a dark grove of trees. I was frightened to pass through those trees even though I knew that on the other side the river of life, the river of meaningful life and cold beer at a reasonable price was waiting, but I stood there paralyzed, my legs were like stone, my arms were like lead and I knew that feeling because I’d felt it a thousand times before, I said ‘Man, I ain’t going, I’m gonna run….because that's what I know how to do and that’s what I’m good at….running.’”

There’s a bit of an extended instrumental opening for “Working On the Highway” and then I remembered the basin of water and the peanut sponge. (Are my friends and I the only people who were consistently horrified by the existence of that item? It felt very unsanitary, even back then. I gave one of these friends a peanut sponge for a joke wedding gift.) This version is a little less twangy compared to other contemporary renditions. Bruce is really still in high gear! He is not letting up. Even in the short interlude before the next song, he lets out a quiet “Woooo,” while he’s tuning up.

“The Ghost of Tom Joad” has a special dedication. “I wanna do this tonight for the folks that are here from the California Rural Legal Assistance. They’re a legal services program with 17 offices in communities from the Mexican border up to Northern California and they fight on behalf of migrant farm workers and new immigrants, single mothers, the elderly, in poor communities throughout the state, they represent those with no other voice or other legal representation, and they´re dedicated to winning humane living and working conditions for the poorest of the California poor. They’re an important and they’re an essential organization here in California, and I’ve been with them through the central part of the state, and there's still plenty of folks in conditions barely removed from the Okies in The Grapes of Wrath. They provide valuable service and assistance and they can really use your help and support, they’re called the California Rural Legal Assistance, they’ll be out in the lobby, you should check them out.”

The beauty of full-band performances of any song from Joad were/are, to me, interesting examples of what perhaps an electric Nebraska could have sounded like. It is closer to country than folk, a little bounce, a little aural sweetening, it’s subdued, perfectly in context. The bridge is gorgeous, the harmonica, the lap steel, the stand-up bass. Keep all of those thoughts top of mind as they move into the next song, the tour debut (and sole performance) for “Sinaloa Cowboys.” It’s stunning and the enhancements only make it more heartbreaking.

“Backstreets,” never a slacker in the setlist, is particularly grand, and a great mix allowing you to hear the details of Roy Bittan’s fantastic work. But compared to the way E Street oscillates into “Light of Day,” it feels almost lightweight. This isn’t meant as a diss against “Backstreets,” but rather a dramatic way to explain what’s going on with this particular LOD which could have been performed by the Ramones in terms of tempo and intensity. Danny is the MVP of this one, even after hearing the guitar solos, which are textured and inventive, super fun, the kind of thing you can toss off only if you are really fucking good at your job. There’s a detour through “Boom Boom,” not unheard of in this era – Chicago, home of the blues, got it both nights – and when it’s done right, I really miss “I’ve Been Everywhere.” It feels like he forgot the point of the recitation of the place names, jamming “Frisco” in at the very end, and then, after the pause, adding Oakland and Alameda. 

“I’ve seen people LOSSSTTTT on their cell phones” hits much harder in 2025! 

The televangelist bit is so sharp and focused, it’s still brand new, it doesn’t meander, it’s funny and clever and engaging. I felt like the seasoned tour habitue, knowing how the rap went, even though this was only my fourth show on the tour. (Thank you, tapers!) 

“Get a microphone up here…we got a great New Jersey citizen here with us tonight, Southside Johnny! A fine example of New Jersey-ness.” I’m trying to figure out why he decided that, out of all the songs in your repertoire, he decided to put Uncle South on “Hungry Heart,” but based on the performance (this was definitely rehearsed), it must have been what he wanted. (Except it wasn’t on the written setlist – he writes “Hungry,” then crosses it out in favor of “Bobby Jean.” So who knows!) Bruce is definitely showboating vocally because Southside is there, I swear, there is extra special sauce on the first verse. Southside out-sings him, and then there are absolutely fabulous harmonies with Patti on the choruses. Lovely warmth in Clarence’s outro solo. 10 points to the Oakland audience for a robust sing-a-long, I expected nothing less. “A walking chaos machine,” Bruce jokes after Southside takes his leave.

“Ahh, let’s get dirty now!” 

“Ramrod” on the Reunion tour was always a welcome moment. It was always fun, it was that point in the show where the entire band could relax a little bit, Bruce was a ham and he did not care. He’s still singing his ass off; Roy is declarative, a little showy, this isn’t the place where I’d be looking for that but I don’t hate it at all. The whole “car not starting” shtick is both accurate and way dirtier than I viewed it at the time. 

The encore is lovely, life-affirming. Oakland sings back with vigor on “Thunder Road” and seems to surprise Bruce a little; those are always nice moments. My mind contrasts this “Thunder Road” with the one we have now, the one that began after we lost Clarence. It was something that you never thought would change, until it did. I don’t think Bruce got enough credit for “If I Should Fall Behind” being in this setlist and being presented the way it was, with each of the different members getting a turn. It was an obvious gesture, a deliberate presentation, and no one was expecting – or, let’s be clear, in many cases, wanting – any songs from either Human Touch or Lucky Town in the Reunion set. But this charming arrangement probably won some folks over to that project.

The segue into “Land of Hope And Dreams” remains perfection. A song from an album that was less than embraced by the fanbase into a brand-new song. I do, however, want to know who is off-rhythm in the beginning of this song. I’m assuming that naming the 2025 round-of-rescheduled-dates-that-isn’t-really-a-tour “The Land of Hope and Dreams Tour” means that it’s rightly returning to a regular spot in the set. My favorite shirt from the Reunion era is a great shot of Bruce at the mic reaching up to the sky with FAITH WILL BE REWARDED at the top. If you guessed that it was a bootleg shirt, you’d be right!

(Remember how Bruce used to pogo during the last bridge on LOHAD?)

“Ah fuck, one more!” and he decides to play…”Blinded by the Light.” It sure sounds like no one in the E Street Band knew that this was going to happen because everyone jumps in in a slightly different spot, and just to be sure I checked and it was absolutely not on the setlist. “We’ll be seeing you!” “The Boss has left the building,” says the walking chaos machine that is Southside Johnny Lyon.

Listening to this show, I was trying to figure out where this extra oomph was coming from. I remember the show as being great but that’s about what I would have said about any Reunion era show. I have very specific recollection of talking about the West Coast run on rec.music.artists.springsteen, and there was a lot of discussion about the Los Angeles shows, but nothing came to mind immediately.

So I went through old issues of Backstreets from this time period to see if there was anything in the show reports that might indicate while this particular performance was so elevated. Not complaining, mind you, just trying to locate the motivation. Honestly? I think it was Southside being there. There’s still a whole lot of sibling rivalry in their relationship. 

Finally, it is worth talking about this setlist a little bit because Brucebase has the written setlist and man did it go way off the deep end! “Don’t Look Back” was the original opener, going into “Candy’s Room,” and then “Promised Land.” He had “Streets of Philadelphia” as a potential alternate to “Sinaloa Cowboys.” The latter never showed up again and it’s so pristine it seems unfortunate it didn't happen – except for the fact that I had to pause while listening to it three separate times because I had such an emotional reaction. It’s not like “Streets of Philadelphia” is less tragic subject matter but it has a surface veneer that anything from GOTJ does not. In any event, this was a great and enjoyable pick, and I’ll resurrect my ARE WE EVER GETTING ANYTHING FROM 1975 OR NO? banner next month.

An official archive release

*Can we please just stipulate that on this website if I’m talking about The River tour, I’m not talking about 2016