With hindsight

[borntorunsean]

What was the reason behind the second the river tour? Great shows and loved it, but why tour with 35 year old album?

[Perisic]

Well, money.

[Jimmy James]

Don't know, but thank god he did, or we would be rock n roll dry since 2014, when no one liked that album either. 

[Early North Jersey]

I have a lot of reasons ....all conjecture....To Promote the Box Set ? Because Steve Asked really nicely ?  ....or because the the original River show in 2009 was ecstatically received and he wanted to bring it to more people .....

 

[65pacecar]

Nothing else to do at the time. 

[Jimmy James]

4 minutes ago, Early North Jersey said:

because the the original River show in 2009 was ecstatically received and he wanted to bring it to more people .....

YES! In the two All River shows I seen, I got 14 songs I never heard live before. It was like a new album being released. And all songs played. 

[Daisey Jeep]

the river anniversary tour is the greatest thing since 78 

im.not kidding

its my favourite tour and i kick myself for not going

i think in hindsite the river tour was part of the deeply reflective journey leading up to the book and SOB

i listened to every show, most of them multiple times

i found those spoken interludes deeply moving and though provoking where i could not sleep afterwards

but he gave new meaning - or maybe just revealed more layers of meaning to songs i had enjoyed in the past but looked on as a bit of fluff and fill

the river was the first album i brought when exploring the back catalogue, i am very emotionally attached to that record

the river the song is the song on the radio that got be curious many many years after BITUSA gathered dust with the rest of my teenage memories 

 

when the tour was anounced, i raised my eyebrows, but after the 2nd release from nugs i knew this was going to be something phenomenal 

all of a sudden everything on that record was relevant to my times

 

also its ENJ's favourite record 

in hindsite that's definatly reason enough for a tour ! 

[LeoGetz]

I guess he wanted to tour and looked for a "reason". 

[Paolo's Circus Story]

 

[MacBruce]

40 minutes ago, borntorunsean said:

What was the reason behind the second the river tour? Great shows and loved it, but why tour with 35 year old album?

Strangest tour he has ever done. A 35 year old album remastered and reissued in a box set, so he does a world tour behind it ? Why didn't he tour behind the Born to Run or Darkness Box sets ?

I thought at the time it was Bruce and the ESB's farewell to the fans. That might still turn out to be the case but like every other fan I very much hope not.

Got to see two great shows in Manchester and Glasgow, but I am still a bit annoyed to this day that he didn't do full album River shows in the UK and in Europe (Paris excepted). I was really looking forward to seeing and hearing my favourite Bruce album played in it's entirety.

[Captain Chaos]

By far the least interesting tour he’s ever done.

Still had some great moments but pretty hollow overall. 

[Jertucky]

27 minutes ago, LeoGetz said:

I guess he wanted to tour and looked for a "reason". 

That’s it right there, I would think.

[Glenntennis87]

28 minutes ago, MacBruce said:

Strangest tour he has ever done. A 35 year old album remastered and reissued in a box set, so he does a world tour behind it ? Why didn't he tour behind the Born to Run or Darkness Box sets ?

I thought at the time it was Bruce and the ESB's farewell to the fans. That might still turn out to be the case but like every other fan I very much hope not.

Got to see two great shows in Manchester and Glasgow, but I am still a bit annoyed to this day that he didn't do full album River shows in the UK and in Europe (Paris excepted). I was really looking forward to seeing and hearing my favourite Bruce album played in it's entirety.

Manchester was a great night but yeah shame he didnt play the album right through

[Frank03]

Some explanations by the man himself

https://www.backstreets.com/riverinterview.html

Backstreets: So this tour comes as quite a surprise!
Springsteen: It was a surprise. It was a surprise to us, too, you know? We were kind of heading on a slightly different path — I had some new music, which was a little more of a solo record. I thought that I'd be out on that next. But then the box set came out, and we started to fool around with the idea of playing maybe a show… then, well, maybe two shows… and that turned into a short leg that we have going here in the States. It's a chance to let people experience the record start to finish, which we've only played once before.

Of course every time a tour ends, there are always fans wondering if that's the last time we'll see the band, so it's exciting that we get another chapter. Do you know what the lineup will be this time?
It's just the original post-[reunion] setup.

No horn section, no singers?
Yeah. So that should be fun. It was the kind of thing where I looked at it and decided, well, I have this project that I like a lot, but it's probably going to involve me playing by myself. And I figured if I get into that, it could be quite a while before the band ends up touring again. So having this little respite in there is gonna be a nice thing — it gives us a chance to get out there again before it ends up being a real long span.

What inspired you to hit the road for this one? It was five years ago, almost to the day, that you were at the carousel in Asbury Park for the Promise show there, but that was a one-off. You've had the Born to Run box, and then the Darkness box... is there something about the River box that makes you want to go out and play it?
The idea of touring was just, well gee, we have this big project, these projects take a long time to put together, and what is the way to get it the most attention, and make it the most exciting? And that's obviously: well, we could play! It's been long enough since we've played that that tasted pretty good.

These days we don't have to go out and play 150 shows every time the band comes together. You can go out and play 20 shows, if you have something to do — or if you just feel like it. We're no longer bound by the previous rules of, "You've gotta have a record, then you've gotta go out and tour for two years.…" I don't think we have to do that anymore at this point. Though I'm sure we'll do it in the future.

[Early North Jersey]

1 hour ago, Daisey Jeep said:

the river anniversary tour is the greatest thing since 78 

im.not kidding

its my favourite tour and i kick myself for not going

i think in hindsite the river tour was part of the deeply reflective journey leading up to the book and SOB

i listened to every show, most of them multiple times

i found those spoken interludes deeply moving and though provoking where i could not sleep afterwards

but he gave new meaning - or maybe just revealed more layers of meaning to songs i had enjoyed in the past but looked on as a bit of fluff and fill

the river was the first album i brought when exploring the back catalogue, i am very emotionally attached to that record

the river the song is the song on the radio that got be curious many many years after BITUSA gathered dust with the rest of my teenage memories 

 

when the tour was anounced, i raised my eyebrows, but after the 2nd release from nugs i knew this was going to be something phenomenal 

all of a sudden everything on that record was relevant to my times

 

also its ENJ's favourite record 

in hindsite that's definatly reason enough for a tour ! 

Symbiotic relationship ..... How much you appreciated it made me enjoy it more  .....Man I could not wait for that Box Set to come out !!!

[Daisey Jeep]

19 minutes ago, Early North Jersey said:

Symbiotic relationship ..... How much you appreciated it made me enjoy it more  .....Man I could not wait for that Box Set to come out !!!

why thank you 

to me the river record and you are an inseparable entity 

 

[berlintramp]

I think it was one of these depths of depression when he asked Landau: Get me a tour, any tour.

Touring was one one way of getting out of a depressive phase, he wrote.

[soulcrusader78]

19 minutes ago, berlintramp said:

I think it was one of these depths of depression when he asked Landau: Get me a tour, any tour.

Touring was one one way of getting out of a depressive phase, he wrote.

Bruce could give money to the poor and help feed and clothe and house people if he couldn't tour (like now) if he gets depressed, to help them and himself, help fight his depression.

[berlintramp]

How do you know what exactly would help someone out of a deep depression? Bruce wrote that he could function when performing and not in any other way.

Desperation takes different shapes.

[Frank]

2 hours ago, berlintramp said:

I think it was one of these depths of depression when he asked Landau: Get me a tour, any tour.

Touring was one one way of getting out of a depressive phase, he wrote.

This.

I was about to write the same thing (I just needed to check the book).

Unfortunately, depression might have been a reason for his intensive touring In the last decade or so.

(BTW, it’s chapter 75 on the autobiography, and the quote is, ‘I called Jon and said, “Mr Landau, book me anywhere, please”.)

[BobbyJames]

I think like others have said money would be a factor, and wanting to tour with the band

i also think that the River fit a good narrative for that stage of the career - with the speeches on the full album show about the River being about life, it fit in nicely with the autobiography and broadway. 

[Jimmy James]

19 minutes ago, BobbyJames said:

I think like others have said money would be a factor, and wanting to tour with the band

i also think that the River fit a good narrative for that stage of the career - with the speeches on the full album show about the River being about life, it fit in nicely with the autobiography and broadway. 

Everything is calculated, even by Bruce (Inc.) for max dollar, which I don't fault them with, as that is what life is mostly about. Just don't hide behind that fact. 

[Thunder Roadie]

On 6/3/2020 at 11:13 PM, MacBruce said:

Why didn't he tour behind the Born to Run or Darkness Box sets ?

But he did do thosealbums in their entirety on earlier tours and the River was always going to be too long to drop it in a set. I agree with a few of the above posts, it was a great tour. I wasnt fortunate enough to see Bruce before 1987 so it was great to see  the second Paris gig when he did the full album and it was one of my favourite shows I have attended.... hearing The Price you Pay live was worth the plane ticket alone !

[badlands78]

A big plus is that The River Tour (2016) essentially eliminated the bragging rights for the folks that had attended the MSG 2009 show in which the album was performed in its entirety.

[MacBruce]

1 hour ago, badlands78 said:

A big plus is that The River Tour (2016) essentially eliminated the bragging rights for the folks that had attended the MSG 2009 show in which the album was performed in its entirety.

Only if you caught the US leg.