The date was February 26, 2014, and I was vacationing with my wife, Jennifer, in Australia just before her first leukemia diagnosis. We were on a Down Under junket with The Boss and saw Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band three times inside of a week – first in Sydney, then Hunter Estates in a wine field (where my wife tackled Bruce and his guitar in the pit) and then onto Boondall, just outside of Brisbane.
We had E Street Lounge pre-show backstage passes left from my longtime friend Nils Lofgren, who warned me of “extra” homework on this tour. I never even saw Nils on the tour. The band had been doing nightly opening “tribute” songs to Australian rockers and had already done AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell” in Melbourne and “Don’t Change” by INXS in Sydney and the wine field. The great Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine was on the road with the band and I ran into saxophonist Jake Clemons over a pre-show drink and he warned me of something very special.
Not only did The E Street Band open with the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” that night but Bruce completely audibled into the first-ever reading of “The Wild, the Innocent and The E Street Shuffle,” a straight album of rarities and songs Bruce hadn’t done in decades.
We saw Eddie Vedder in the pre-show so we knew he was there. Apparently, the whole band had been out surfing on the Gold Coast earlier that morning on some of the most beautiful beaches on earth.
Five songs into what was a legendary set by any Backstreets standards, in a tiny, little arena in Australia, Eddie Vedder had his own moment with Bruce Springsteen on stage in the pit for “Spirit In The Night.”
I shot this one on my Droid camera phone.
Watch this one…until the end because it gets better and better. Follow my wife’s pink fingernails…
During the encore, Vedder famously joined Springsteen on stage for “Highway To Hell.”
