The ‘Born to Run’ outtake was one of several surprises the E Street Band broke out Sunday evening in Cardiff, Wales
Prior to hitting the road this year, Bruce Springsteen promised that he’d mix up the setlist far more than he did last year when a vocal contingent of fans complained there wasn’t enough variation from night to night. “Some of my basic themes of mortality and life and those things, I’m going to keep set,” he said on SiriusXM’s E Street Radio. “I think I’m gonna move around the other parts of the set a lot more, so there’ll be a much wider song selection going on. So we’re looking at it like, it’s a little bit of the old tour, but we’re looking at it like a new tour.”
At the kickoff date of his 2024 European tour at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, Springsteen stuck to that promise by beginning the show with “So Young And In Love,” a wonderfully obscure tune he hadn’t played live since 2013.
“So Young And In Love” dates all the way back to 1974 when Springsteen began playing an early version titled “A Love So Fine.” It included the line “rat traps filled with soul crusaders,” which he later re-worked into the Born to Run song “Night.” The E Street Band recorded the tune in the studio that year, but it didn’t make the cut for Born to Run and wouldn’t surface until the Tracks box set in 1998. He debuted a live version in December 2000.
The surprises in Cardiff continued six songs later when he played the Lucky Town song “Better Days” for the first time since 2017. Springsteen also responded to a sign request and broke out “If I Was The Priest,” a fan favorite from 1971. The E Street Band recorded it in 2020 for Letter To You, but they only played it three times last year.
The other notable moments in Cardiff were the first performances of “The River” and “Born in the U.S.A.” this year. The latter song rarely surfaces on this side of the Atlantic these days. It was played once in the States in 2023 and 22 times in Europe. On the 2016/17 River tour, it was played at four American gigs and 22 overseas ones. (The song has a long history of being misread in America.)
Springsteen and the E Street Band continue their European tour Thursday night in Belfast, Ireland. Another U.S. leg begins on August 15 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The 2024 tour wraps up on November 22 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
