Youngstown/Murder, Incorporated: Is there a better 1-2 punch for coming out of the slower portions of the show? Nils proves that Bruce’s line about him being the world’s most overqualified second guitarist is spot-on.

She’s The One: Never gets old.

Livin’ In The Future: As always, he opens with a spoken intro about the trampling of our civil liberties. But when the vocals start, he begins with the second verse. He’s human! A line or two in, he stops the song, laughs it off and starts again.

Mary’s Place: Some think it slows the set down, and I can kind of see that. But it’s performed with an energy that even the faster songs don’t have. Between the soul preacher intro, the exhortations to the crowd in the “Turn it up!” parts, and yes, the running knee-slide, the song is a 15-minute microcosm of the entire concert.

I’ll Work For Your Love: Another audible. Drive All Night (!) was on the setlist and, while that’s a better song (and the emotional zenith when I saw him on the solo Devils & Dust tour), this works better here. It’s shorter (especially coming after Mary’s Place) and the crowd can sing along.

It’s at this point I turn to Marcel and say, “We’re getting a long one tonight. He hasn’t even started the standard last four songs yet.” Of course, as soon as I say that…

The Rising: I could dedicate an entire post to how perfectly realized it is, but this song continues to take on new and deeper meaning for me with every time I hear it. And, without being bombarded in the arena by advertisments for a telecommunications corporation, I didn’t have to think “Come on up for Verizon.”

Last To Die: This one’s fading a bit for me. Not on the sentiment, but because the verses are too verbose and opaque. Some more directness would have gotten the message across with more power. But it still transitions nicely into…

Long Walk Home: In St. Paul, we noticed that it has an extended coda (as opposed to a distended colon). Nils and Steve both get opportunities to shine at the mic as Bruce works the pit again. While Steve is front and center, I turn to Marcel and say, “You know that’s Silvio, right?” Apparently he didn’t. He does the Jon Stewart Head Shake Of Disbelief and says, “Wow. That’s a pretty good second gig.”

Badlands: The second false ending was but another sign that this wasn’t a typical show. Every Springsteen show should end the main set with Badlands. I’ll go further than that. Every rock concert by anybody anywhere should end the main set with Badlands.

And a word to the guys behind me…get off your ass. It’s Badlands, fer chrissakes. In Philly, you could be shot for sitting through Badlands. I won’t even go near the trio in front of me who got up and left here.

Encores

* Crush On You: He decides to go to the signs again and pulls this one, undoubtedly due to the sheer absurdity of someone requesting what he calls “the worst song we’ve ever recorded” (apparently, he has repressed “Real Man.” I’m not so lucky). “I’m pretty sure we’ve played this once,” he continues. “And Steve says you’re about to hear why.” But I’ve always loved that it was a big, stoopid garage pastiche. They take a second to run through the chords (both of them) and have a blast doing it. Not only is this a tour premiere, it hasn’t been played since December 16, 1980 in Boston. By the way, the setlist here called for Thunder Road, so this can go down in Springsteen lore as the most unholy audible ever.

* Quarter To Three: I had a feeling it was oldies time, and I’m still laughing like a loon at the idea of Crush On You when Bruce looked over at Nils, who wasn’t at the mic and called out,”Vocalists!” A cue that the song was going to start with some a capella harmony. No fucking way, I thought. Even though I called it, I couldn’t believe it. My favorite of all his covers, the one that he would hold on to in the 1970s and not let go, as if it contained all the answers to life. It would have been the highlight of the show, except for what happened six minutes after this ended.

Born To Run: Move along, nothing to see here I haven’t seen plenty of times before…Ah, who am I kidding? Certainly not any you incredibly smart people.

* Rosalita: Did the acoustics obscure the riff, or was I in shock? Either way, it didn’t fully resonate until the organ kicked in, even though he’s played it after Born To Run in five of the six shows prior to this. I never thought it would happen, and I can now die knowing I’ve lived a complete life.

Bobby Jean: I don’t understand the animosity for this on the Backstreets forum. That last verse is one of his best, and Clarence held that note at the end for an eternity.

Dancing In The Dark: Finally, a song Marcel knew!

American Land: Two teenage boys in front of me did a little jig, and I bruised my hand clapping along with the standard tour closer.

But even after the song ended, they didn’t just take their bows and walk off after a few seconds. To paraphrase the usual shtick when they play Ramrod, it wasn’t quittin’ time. It wasn’t sexy time. It was BOSS TIME!

* Twist And Shout: He brought out Robbin Thompson, the former lead singer in Steel Mill (one of Bruce’s early bands) to join them. It was cool to see two old friends together, but let’s just say Bruce’s voice has aged better. And Max, the world’s biggest Ringo fan, aped his hero’s fills during the ten-minute rave-up.

* Songs I had never seen Springsteen play before

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out: Sets the tone perfectly. It gets everybody involved, and it’s not too fast, so there’s room to build. And yes, he did the same opening as in Giants Stadium.

Radio Nowhere: I like it better as the second song than the opener, which it was early in the tour. If the E Street Band tour again, it should remain a regular part of the set.

Out In The Street: Watching Bruce work the pit is a thing of beauty. We were a few rows into the upper deck and a little behind the stage on Clarence and Charlie’s side, so we could see him feeding off the crowd’s energy, shaking hands and hamming it up. And even with the sound sucking the entire low range into a vacuum, when Clarence stepped to the center to sing “Meet me out in the street, baby” it rang through loud and clear. He walked back to his spot with a massive smile.

Prove It All Night: The first audible, and Bruce smoked the outro solo. It reminded me of the extended intro solos he did on the 78 tour, starting low and building to a crescendo before the crash of the B minor chord. Always a high point.

Lonesome Day: I’ve seen this at all four shows. It slows things down a bit and gives everybody a nice chance to catch their breath.

* Spirit In The Night: I’ve never loved this song as much as most fans do. I like it enough, but I guess I wish it had more of an emotional payoff. But I was still really glad to finally see it live, especially when, in the second verse, he pulled a kid out of the pit and they sat at the foot of the stage, with the boy taking the “all nights” in the chorus.

If you look at Bruce’s handwritten setlist, you’ll notice four blanks at this point. I don’ t know if he’s done this before, but it started on this tour a few weeks ago in Foxboro. Max pounds out a garage rock beat and Bruce calls out for the signs. He pulls about a dozen out of the pit (”You’ve been following me around all year with that,” he tells someone requesting Land Of Hope And Dreams. “Keep trying.”), lays them on the stage. Then he picks one and shows it to the band and crew, and then to us.

* Stand On It: The first “Seriously?” moment of the night. A Born In The U.S.A.-era B-side that’s only been played once on this tour, in Amsterdam? Clearly he loves the idea of playing “Stump The Band” to keep them sharp, and it energizes him as well. Bruce shouts, “Time for some rockabilly! Key of D!” and the band tear into it as if they knew it was coming. Then again, it’s not the most difficult song.

* Cadillac Ranch: The sign had a drawing of an old-school Caddy complete with tailfins. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that he could easily replace “Wisconsin” with “Virginia.” The 11th performance on this tour of Bruce’s 1980 rocker about cars, sex and death.

Backstreets: Bruce is standing at the mic looking for an idea when he spots a kid up front holding a piece of notebook paper. He takes it and it reads, “My band just broke up. Please play Backstreets.” An appeal to the heartstrings, no doubt, but it works. Before the coda, he says, “I know it hurts when a band breaks up.” I thought he would go further than that into a Sad Eyes-like stream of conscience thing, but he doesn’t. The perfect song for the moment, and gives me hope for the kid’s musical future. That said, I still have a feeling it put my beloved Incident On 57th Street back on the shelf (I’m pretty sure he originally grabbed that sign).

* For You: On the way to meet Marcel, I was listening to a bootleg from 1975 and skipped over this song, even though it’s one of my favorites, because I figured there was no way he would play it. Sure enough, Bruce clears the stage and goes to Roy’s piano. I see a close-up of the sign on the video screen for the second “Seriously?” moment of the night. Then he talks a little bit about his long history with Richmond, going all the way back to the late-60s. But I can’t make out too much of what he’s saying, a combination of the lousy acoustics and utter shock.

* Songs I had never seen Springsteen play before

Marcel’s a few years younger than I am, and by the time he started to form his opinions about music, Springsteen was no longer the massive chart presence he was in the mid-80s, so all he knew were the Born In The U.S.A.-era hits. But he has a remarkably open mind, and even though he prefers small clubs, I felt he should see the undisputed master of the arena rock concert. I made a deal with him that the ticket was on me if he would drive down to Richmond. I also sent him something like 85 songs, many of which Bruce was likely to play, and the rest being those I thought he would enjoy.

Going into the show, I thought I was becoming jaded towards the idea of another Bruce Springsteen concert. After all, I had seen three other shows on this tour, downloaded a handful of bootlegs, and even tracked all the setlists on a spreadsheet. So my expectations for Richmond, hardly a marquee city, were simply for a typical Bruce show: a night of rock n’ roll awesomeness more or less in line with what I saw in St. Paul or the second night in DC.

Sweet Jesus, was I wrong. This blew the doors off of all three shows, and is probably the greatest arena show I’ve ever been to. When I told that to Kim this morning, she said “Better than Aretha?” referring to the show we saw in Vegas three years ago. Well, yeah. Aretha may have done jaw-droppingly gorgeous versions of Angel and Bridge Over Troubled Water that brought tears to my eyes, but she didn’t do a running knee-slide across the stage.

It was also the longest of the shows I’ve seen on this tour, clocking in at about three hours and ten minutes. And even after the last song, he was still holding his Telecaster and shaking hands with the crowd. It just looked like he didn’t want to leave the stage.

Marcel was also blown away, especially by the E Street Band. He expected them to be great musicians, but didn’t expect the mixture of chemistry and versatility that can only come from guys with 35-40 years of history together.

The only downside to the show was the venue. The Richmond Coliseum is small by arena standards (13,000), and what it has in intimacy it completely lacks in acoustics. There are no baffles to absorb the sound, so there’s a huge echo off the back wall. I can see how that would create a great atmosphere for a basketball or hockey game, but for a nine-piece rock n’ roll band (Patti wasn’t there tonight), it’s death.

I’ll have annotated setlist tomorrow. I got in at 2:30 this morning, so I’m ready to drop.

Fourth and final show of the Magic tour for me tonight (unless somebody wants to give me a ticket and transportation to Hershey tomorrow). I’m bringing a friend who doesn’t really know that much about Springsteen, but he’s willing to learn, and he needs to see the supreme awesomeness of Clarence Clemons in person. Recap to follow tomorrow.

I just got the news from Post Rock that Jerry Wexler, the most important name in the history of rhythm and blues music, has died at the age of 91. Why was a Jewish kid from Washington Heights so most important in black music? He’s the one who came up with the term “rhythm and blues” when editing Billboard’s “Race Records” charts in the 1940s and 50s.

After that, he moved to Atlantic Records and joined the Erteguns and Tom Dowd and brought soul music to the world. The guy in “Ray” played by Richard Schiff (Toby on The West Wing)? That was Wexler.

First Isaac Hayes, now this. Crap. Coincidentally, if Wexler hadn’t contractually taken control of Stax’s masters when their distribution deal with Atlantic ended, we might never have known Isaac Hayes as a solo artist. Needing to start from scratch with no catalog, no Sam & Dave, and no Otis Redding, Stax set on a campaign to release 28 albums at once. One of the albums of those 28 was Hayes’ classic Hot Buttered Soul.

But still, if not for Wexler, Aretha Franklin would barely be remembered as the girl who was billed as the next Billie Holiday or Dinah Washington. When she got released by Columbia in 1967, Wexler snapped her up. He offered her on loan to Stax, who couldn’t deal with the extra workload, so he produced Aretha herself. He knew the key to bringing the best out of her was to sit her down at the piano to bring out her gospel roots. The rest is in the grooves.

Here’s the New York Times’ appreciation.

Like everybody else right now, I’m following the Olympics. Maybe I’ll a liveblog a block of coverage this weekend. It will depend on a few things.

I love that the USOC pressured the IOC to schedule the premiere events - swimming and gymnastics - so that they fall in prime time here. I got caught up in the women’s all-around gymnastics last night. What an amazing performance by Nastia Liukin! Even though Liukin is 18, she beat Shawn Johnson, 16, and Yang Yilin (redacted) for the same reason - her maturity and grace beat out the high-flying pixies that we’ve long associated with gymnastic excellence. It didn’t hurt that she stuck the landing, either.

On the Slate Political Gabfest this morning, they were talking about how, in 2000 and 2004, Svetlana Khorkina dominated the field for the same reasons, even though she was in her 20s. Maybe this is the start of a sea change in the way women’s gymnastics is judged, which has come under scrutiny in recent years for its treatment/exploitation of young girls. Then again, we learned time and again this week that Liukin was bred to be a gymnastic champion by her parents. Somewhere in Hell, Mama Rose is smiling.

Speaking of Slate, if you’re not following their Olympics Twitter feed, you should be. Hysterical commentary from them. My friends Beau and Samer are also working the games and providing their insights on Twitter as well. And of course, you can follow me, too.

But with swimming, when Michael Phelps breaks the record, it will be rightfully hailed as a remarkable achievement. But it will also break the heart of every sports-loving Jewish American. For 36 years, we could always say, “Mark Spitz - greatest Olympic champion ever! Seven gold medals in ‘72!” whenever our lack of athletic prowess was mocked (it works best if you use Jackie Mason’s voice). Now that will be taken away from us. But could Phelps be that fast if he had a killer porn ’stache like Spitz? I don’t think so.

In unrelated news, this morning I saw one of those signs made by insane crackpots that you so often find in and around downtown DC parks. Usually, I ignore them, but a phrase in there about JFK leading us to our destiny caught my eye. “OK,” I thought. “He’s talking about continuing Kennedy’s vision for a better America.” Then I looked at another sentence, and saw that it was about how we should colonize space.

How many times has this happened to you?

You’re sitting at your desk in the morning and a co-worker will walk past and ask, “How are you?” As a model corporate citizen, you respond with, “I’m fine, thanks. How are you?” Said co-worker not only doesn’t answer you, he/she didn’t look up or even break stride on the way to their destination.

There were a few guys at my old job who did this all the time. Seriously, if you don’t genuinely care how I’m doing, why did you ask? If you were just attempting politeness, a simple “Good morning” works better because it doesn’t require an answer, only reciprocation on my part. But if you ask a question, even one as perfunctory as “How are you today?,” stop and give an answer. This way you don’t look like a jackass.

OK, apparently there were a bunch of broken links as a result of my move to the new host last month. While I can’t say they have all been discovered, I have fixed the ones related to the Feedburner and Comments feeds, so if this is the first post you’ve gotten in your aggregator in a while, I’m sorry about that. Hopefully there won’t be too many more of them.

I’ve spent the better part of the weekend going back and forth between all the channels (smart move by NBC to consolidate prime-time coverage to the main network) and I’ve been impressed with the quality of play, but not with the coverage. They haven’t done as much of the sappy features as in the past, but it seems like they’re tying every single thing about the Olympics into Michael Phelps. Lezak was the star in the 4×100 Free medley last night, but all that NBC focused on was how it benefited Phelps (and how it shut up Bernard). NBC Sports shouldn’t be following ESPN’s hype-the-player-ignore-the-game philosophy.

I also wish they could have gotten better color commentators for some of the lesser known sports. Case in point: I was watching Team Handball and they weren’t doing anything more than calling the game. There was no instruction as to the finer points of the game, its history, and why it’s popular in Eastern Europe. Then again, I don’t really care too much, because it’s a dumb sport.

One final thing: I never thought I’d say this, but could President Bush please come back to DC? It’s not like he’s doing a good job or anything, but he’s been on TV more in the past three days than in the previous three months. If all he’s going to do is run out the clock on his horrible presidency, can he at least do it in a setting where I don’t have to see his every move?

As if losing Bernie Mac yesterday wasn’t enough of a blow, I just learned that Isaac Hayes has died suddenly at the age of 65. Without Hayes, first as a writer and producer, then as a solo act, Stax Records never could have achieved what it did. His lush orchestrations and radical reinventions of songs by the likes of Jimmy Webb and Burt Bacharach redefined what R&B artists were capable of. Of course, he’s most famous for the score for Shaft, so here’s the movie’s famous opening scene, as cut to Hayes’ famous theme.

Here’s one of the hits he wrote for Sam and Dave, Hold On, I’m Coming.  You can hear the amazingly funny story for how this was written on Episode 18 of WFW.

Here’s one of those Bacharach tunes, Walk On By.