Live from the Joe Louis Arena, Springsteen and his E Street Band don’t half deliver a heavyweight performance in this early stop on the Tunnel of Love Express Tour. It’s been a release six years in the making, not quite for the show’s reputation, but instead for the Live Downloads debut of “Walk Like a Man”. And in typical Series fashion, there’s so much more to this one than just the song we’ve been waiting for.

It was the tone in Bruce’s voice that immediately caught my attention during “Tunnel of Love”. I wrote in January 2019 about him sounding more upbeat in the 23/5 New York show than the moody 23/4 LA outing, so having now heard this show featuring a much more jovial Springsteen, I can’t help but sit here thinking about “Two Faces” being one of the most accurate songs he ever wrote. Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and Stockholm all feature a different man performing onstage, and if that doesn’t suggest how damning a collapsing relationship and personal life can be, I don’t know what can. I expect at this point we all know about this tour being a extreme case of art imitating life, and with these four shows (and hopefully more to come) we’ll be able to interpret where Bruce Springsteen was in his life during this particular era more so than we could with any release from any other tour. He walks into this one joking, “My date didn’t show up, d’ya wanna go out?” to the delight of the audience and asks them, “Is it a deal?” towards the end of a fantastic “Be True” – it would be plucked for the Chimes of Freedom EP – so Bruce is evidently in a “try to make things right” mood.

While his vocals in the three shows released from later in the tour are a blend of gruff, despondent and even angry, what we can hear in the likes of ToL album tracks such as “Tunnel of Love”, “Two Faces” and “Brilliant Disguise”, as well as River album outtakes, “Be True” and “Roulette”, is a man much more relaxed, someone singing these songs for enjoyment rather than as a confession of guilt or as a way to release his frustrations. It shouldn’t be too surprising really, seeing as around these early days of the tour Bruce’s first wife was still coming to shows and hanging around backstage. Listening to the differences in “One Step Up” here and the version from Madison Square Garden seems to tell us that she wasn’t showing up anymore around May.

He’s not taking it easy in every song though, oh no, and we’re all so much better for it in these performances of “Adam Raised a Cain”, “War” and the show stealer “Born in the U.S.A.”. Not to say they better the other released versions from the tour, as “Adam” is without the “break that chain” sequence from New York and the “Spare Parts” / “War” / “BITUSA” trio isn’t yet what it would be in Sweden four months later, but they’re excellent examples of a fiery passion within Bruce at the time that was slowly but surely working its way out of him. And needless to say The E Street Band are immense throughout, with Clarence bringing thunder on “Be True” before mixing it up a little on “All That Heaven Will Allow” and “Dancing in the Dark”. Patti complements Bruce stunningly with her vocal contributions, showing a great balance in her vocal range in versions of “Tunnel of Love”, “Brilliant Disguise” and “Tougher Than The Rest” that are otherwise owned by Danny, Roy and The Horns of Love. That being said, it was around “Cover Me” when I realised in 1988 Patti Scialfa could hold her own against just about any singer. On her day, her voice was up there with the best of them. Nils and Bruce also have a fun game of “anything you can do” on guitar over the course of the three and a half hours, with both one-upping the other in “Seeds”, “Roulette” and the “Ain’t Got You” into “She’s The One” combination, though it’s Garry who’s the driving force in the latter two tracks.

While “Walk Like a Man” captures the eye looking at the second set, as mentioned earlier there’s a lot more to it, even if the other ten songs have featured previously in the Los Angeles and New York. The sequence leading up to “One Step Up” can be best described as sultry, following on from the urges of “Ain’t Got You” and “She’s The One” with the teasing rockabilly rendition of “You Can Look” and the ToL Express Tour exclusive “I’m a Coward”, which plays with the notion of humility. It also briefly follows on from last month’s Archive first release of “The Wrestler”, as Bruce decides to rattle off a few names of pro-wrestling’s Golden Era of the late 80s, calling out The Road Warriors and George “The Animal” Steele as well as the usual suspects of Hulk Hogan and André The Giant. The song itself isn’t much different to what can be heard on the other releases, though there is a little less guilt in his voice here while he’s having a joke about the concept of commitment. The seductive “I’m on Fire” wraps up the segment and once again, knowing what we know with context in mind, the lyric “I got a bad desire” and spoken sentence, “I just wanna touch ya, I ain’t gonna hurt ya” can strike us as interesting moments of foreshadowing. This is a case of life imitating art imitating life, and “One Step Up” only emphasises that, because even though he may sound less heartbroken on this night than in New York, he’s still singing intensely about him not being the man he wants to be. It’s something of a shame the comically lustful “Part Man, Part Monkey” is the following the song, because “Walk Like a Man” would’ve worked perfectly as the companion piece. Never to worry, though, because these three flow superbly and the joys of playlists will allow us to mix these shows around if desired.

So, after six years, three Tunnel of Love Express Tour shows, and fifty one shows in total, we finally got that white whale. To hear this “Walk Like a Man”, mixed and mastered sublimely in every aspect has definitely been worth the long wait. Patti’s harmonies are angelic, elevated by Danny’s organ and Roy’s piano, as well as the Horns’ work. What’s most fascinating about it, though, is that even though I’ve been talking to you about Bruce sounding happy in this show, this is the only song where he sounds so genuinely disappointed in himself, and there’s several goosebump creating moments where he sounds like he’s on the brink of tears. I was ready to say how I suspect we’ll get another version of the song later in 2020 like we did with “Meeting Across The River” last year in an example of London Buses, but now I think about it, I don’t know if the Springsteen audience could handle another live version for another six years. Crushingly beautiful.

Everyone’s treated to another Mighty Max double-header afterwards (following “Seeds” and “Roulette”) with “Dancing in the Dark” and “Light of Day” raising the mood, while also raising the bar as far as mixing in the audience goes on these live releases. “Dancing”, “Born in the U.S.A.”, “Born to Run” and “Hungry Heart” from this one should always be looked back on when it comes to getting the amount of audience participation right. There’s been plenty of times in the past where it’s sounded like nobody’s at these shows when Bruce opens it up the crowd to sing, but thankfully that’s far from the case here. “Dancing” and “Light of Day” are also great if you’re wanting to hear Bruce sing with some of that grit in his voice evident in the New York and Stockholm shows. It’s clear sailing before and after, but that fiery passion had worked its way out of him, if just for a moment in these two songs. As for “Born to Run”, Bruce decides to experiment even more than just playing it solo by altering the way he sings certain lyrics, stretching out his lines and taking pauses where you can’t usually find them. “That’s your song“, is the comment he makes as he ends it, because while his personal life may have been in shambles and his relationship with The E Street Band was faltering, Bruce Springsteen never gave up on his audience.

After The Miami Horns do the business on “Hungry Heart” and “Glory Days”, we get another Archive Series first: Bruce’s cover of Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender”. It’s corny, a little odd, but it’s also really wholesome when you consider how much Bruce is putting into his performance. He’s really giving it his all in this one of many Elvis love songs, before he plays the greatest love song he’s ever written, “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”. This “Rosie” has the same “broke, busted and disgusted” opening monologue that Los Angeles would get a month later, but while the LA version is hindered by a worse mix and Bruce sounding a tad more mature in his vocals, this is spot on. So good in fact, that I’d put this “this is his last chance to get his daughter with a good lookin’ honey! The record company, Rosie, gave me so many smackaroonies it’s ridiculous!” line up against both change-ups from the Nassau ’80 versions released last summer. I probably wouldn’t do the same for this “Detroit Medley”, but to hear an officially released version from 1988 was something I’d never thought about and I was looking forward to hearing this nearly as much as I was “Walk Like a Man”. As you might expect, it’s similar in its execution – oh yes, “I Hear a Train” is played! – and in how absolutely mental it is, with the contributions of The Horns being one of two major differences. The other is that interpolation of “Sweet Soul Music” that came out of absolutely nowhere! I was starting to think moments like that were only reserved for “Light of Day”, given its “Born to Be Wild” interpolation on 23/5 and the snippets of “Boom Boom” and “California Sun” played during the two 1999 releases. I adore moments like this in Archive shows when you’re not expecting them, and this is the only time I’ve ever had to look at the track list of a show thinking I’d completely looked over a song. Now who said this was a dark ride?

“There’s a conductor, dressed in black, he says “I’m takin’ you away son, and you ain’t ever comin’ back.””

Before the train takes Springsteen and The E Street Band and the Archive Series onto the next stop, there’s the matter of two more songs on this release. A fine “Raise Your Hand” ends the show, and on any other occasion I might have said it was a flat finale following “Rosie” and “The Medley”, but in all honesty it’s likely to be looked over in favour of the live album closer, “Reason to Believe” from the soundcheck. Yes, Nugs and Bruce Inc. have done it again just when we were starting to believe “For Your Love” from MSG was a one-off, and have included something I personally never knew existed. I mean, “Reason To Believe” considered for a show on the Tunnel of Love Express Tour? Seriously? It’s true, and the evidence we have is another alternate version of the song compared to how it was released on Nebraska. It’s most certainly an intimidating rendition from Bruce, one that might take a couple of listens to get used to. It’s made even more unique by Nils’ eerie guitar playing and Danny’s pure eighties organ sound, giving us a nice contrast to the soundcheck performances attached to each show: This jovial outing gets a gloomy track whereas the angrier Madison Square Garden show gets the delightful Ed Townsend cover. That might be worth keeping in mind if the next Tunnel of Love show gifts us another track at the finish from before the show began.

There’s a recurring comment made from several fans in the build up to every release: “We’ve got too many shows from ‘x’ tour!“, and the shift from normalcy that was the 1988 tour is usually a prime candidate to receive that comment. From just a glance, it might even seem justified, given the consistency in the setlist in contrast to an outing from 1981, 1985 or 2013, for example. It can only be hoped though that following this fourth release from ’88 that particular phrase is put to rest, because this marks four shows from the Tunnel of Love Express Tour that are entirely different in so many different aspects, whether it’s the setlist, the instrumentals of The E Street Band members, or the attitude of Bruce’s voice. All four of these shows tell a different story. If you’re planning on sleeping on this show, you simply can’t. “Born in the U.S.A.” and “Walk Like a Man” are waiting to be heard by every Springsteen fan.

Rating: 8.5/10

Kieran’s recommended listening from March 28th, 1988 – Detroit, MI:

“Tunnel of Love”, “Be True”, “Adam Raised a Cain”, “Two Faces”, “Cover Me”, “Brilliant Disguise”, “Spare Parts“, “War”, “Born in the U.S.A.“, “Tougher Than The Rest”, “She’s The One“, “I’m on Fire”, “One Step Up”, “Walk Like a Man“, “Dancing in the Dark”, “Born to Run”, “Love Me Tender“, “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)“, “Detroit Medley” and “Reason to Believe“.

You can download this concert here.