Springsteen Magic Tour Set List 08/19/08 Hershey, PA: “Part Man Part Monkey” Debuts On A Night of Train Wreck Beauty
What the fuck happened to this world? Have you ever seen a more beautiful mess of a show in your life? This is a train wreck of glory, this show from Hershey, PA last night. What am I talking about? Let’s see. You start with two covers in the first six songs, one of them being a cover not yet attempted on this tour (John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom).
Next… you play “Darlington County” and the ultra-fluffy “Waitin’ On A Sunny Day” which you follow with the visceral “Reason to Believe” and “Prove it All Night.” “No Surrender” and “Because The Night” follow that.
From there, you play the trio from hell: “Mary’s Place,” “Working On The Highway,” and “Part Man Part Monkey.” It’s a good thing the Second Amendment applies in Tennessee because I just might shoot him if he runs that shit out at me. “Part Man Part Monkey.” The fuck. I’ll slap him if he plays that. S-l-aaaaaaa-p him.
The main set closes with the usual suspects. The encore was something else.
“Thunder Road” and “Jungleland” get it started. You’ve got to be pretty jaded not to feel your heart soar at that one-two. A cover of “Seven Nights To Rock” is chased by the Atlanta-esque “Born to Run,” “Rosalita,” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out.” In fact, excluding “Seven Nights,” that’s exactly what we got in Atlanta in a different running order.
To finish off the night, “American Land” is played- but, wait! We have one more. “GLOOOOOOOORIA!” That’s right, I’m talking “G-L-O-R-I-A!” Now I’ve gone on record bitching about Bruce forgetting he’s in the E Street Band and that he’s got the E Street Band behind him, wishing he’d play Bruce Springsteen songs. Even my blackened heart couldn’t have helped but get really excited at that one. I don’t love that song as much as 11 and the rest of you geezers, but it’s an all-time classic and I imagine they tore this one up.
Nashville is next. You have been warned.
Summertime Blues
Radio Nowhere
Out in the Street
Spirit in the Night
The Promised Land
Boom Boom
Darlington County
Waitin’ on a Sunny Day
Reason to Believe
Prove It All Night
No Surrender
Because the Night
She’s the One
Livin’ in the Future
Mary’s Place
Working on the Highway
Part Man Part Monkey
The Rising
Last to Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
Thunder Road
Jungleland
Seven Nights to Rock
Born to Run
Rosalita
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
American Land
Gloria (with Joe and Johnny Grushecky)
Filed under: Tags: Bruce Springsteen, Springsteen Magic Tour Setlists
you should just give me your nashville tickets so you won’t be disappointed.
Sycophant.
curmudgeon
Normally I’d take that as a complement but I just don’t understand how having praise and problems with a setlist amounts to curmudgeonliness. I just don’t buy that. I’m sorry but that’s bullshit.
well, i’m more in lisa’s camp with regard to having problems with setlists. that’s all.
“Part Man Part Monkey???” Dude, you are SO primed to get the tour debut of “Pony Boy” in Nashville.
Okay
Chris RoseMark, just make sure that on every Springsteen set list thread on you here you make sure the world knows you don’t think it’s okay to criticize anything in a setlist lest some first-time reader to the site stumble upon something and be deceived or misled. Your objection is in the record and it’s been overruled.Donald, we’re either getting “Pony Boy” or “The Price You Pay.” There doesn’t seem much in between.
The funny (or bewildering) aspect of it is that someone actually requested “Part Man Part Monkey.”
What kind of person gets the rare opportunity to make a request to Bruce Springsteen and decides on that song???
i never said it’s no ok for you to criticize the setlists, it’s just that much of this series reads like all you have is complaints.
…based just on a list of songs which, taken out of context of the actual experience, seems like a crazy way to evaluate a show.
but hey, it seems to work for you.
enjoy the misery.
See? It’s like the mirror image of the “Bobby Jean” from Atlanta experience. In that situation, someone took the rare opportunity to request a song that is getting played 75% of the time.
In consecutive shows, someone has taken this rare opportunity and requested two of the dumbest fucking songs ever imagined: “PMPM” and “Crush on You.” These people should be killed and then punished. 11, TWTWIM, and I will be walking the perimeter and monitoring signs before admittance. We need to bring some civilization back to this process.
Talk about taking out of context: you’ve reduced the series to a series of complaints when there has been so much positivity and gushing in so many of these posts. That’s your mistaken interpretation. Now yes, I’ve complained about plenty of things I’ve seen but it’s not because I’m impossible to please or because I don’t like anything he does. My complaints are out of disappointment because I know what these things could be. Miserable? Not in the slightest.
I’ve also never pretended to be reviewing the show. Even if I had gotten to go to all of them, I’d still focus at least 50% on what got played and the other 50% on how well it was played. That’s what a concert is: a band playing songs. I’m discussing the only 50% I’ve got at my disposal. What? Should I start scoring the audience? The audience is barely relevant, if at all. It’s about the music, and songs are a fairly massive part of that.
Last but not least… I’m open to honest disagreement. I’m fine with different viewpoints. What I see as curmudgeonly is to read a series every day and grouse about it. I’ve been perfectly candid about what I’m doing here. If you think it’s invalid or crazy, move on to the next article. To be assy about it on the majority of the series posts upon which you comment is the epitome of the misery you’re suggesting I’m slinging.
You get “The Price You Pay” Josh, and I swear to God I will see to it that you are locked in a room and forced to listen to Marys Place for hours on end. Well, either that, or your new mission in life will be to find a soundboard of that show.
;>p
-Glen
Don’t worry, Glen. We’re getting “Pony Boy.”
Glen, the best part of your comment there is I can so hear your voice right now actually saying that. I’ll be laughing about that the whole drive up.
Josh… It’s unfortunate that you base your Springsteen show experience on the setlist. Having just returned from my 32nd Bruce show, I look at it from an entertainment level, not to push the magical jukebox on stage to get the songs I want.
FYI — I was at both the Richmond and Hershey shows. Crush (Richmond) and Part Man (Hershey) were incredibly welcome comic relief points each evening. Both included playful interchange with the audience, funny stories about the songs’ origins, and the wonderful chemistry with a band that clearly hadn’t practiced either song. I wouldn’t have traded either for a well-rehearsed Thundercrack. I was entertained, and based on the crowd reactions, so was everyone else. Try looking at it that way and it’ll take the pressure off your experience expectations.