The Wonder Bar 12/26/09

It was a dark, stormy, windy night in Asbury Park...but the Wonder Bar was alive and jumping on this night after Christmas. The show featured the full album performance of "Born to Run," which is something we've been talking about doing for a while and finally got around to. It went over quite well and was really a lot of fun. Those songs just flow so nicely into one another. We saw a lot of new faces in the crowd which is always nice, had some lovely ladies join us onstage and got to talk with some very nice folks between sets and after the show. Richard Blackwell, conga player on "The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle" even stopped in at the end of the night to say hello. All in all it was an excellent show with a great turnout, especially considering the fact that the weather was just awful. Thanks so much to all who braved the elements to come out and see us play.

DKE Fraternity, University of Pennsylvania 12/5/09

It was the 39th Street Freeze-Out on a cold, snowy Saturday night at the DKE House at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. One of the craziest crowds you’ll ever find was on hand for the 33-song set, rocking out with bandannas and sleeveless flannel shirts until the wee hours of the morning. Rarely do you find an audience at a fever pitch from the beginning of a show till the end, but that’s exactly what we had at the DKE house. Even the more obscure songs like “The Ties That Bind” and “The E Street Shuffle” had the crowd going as did the slow songs “I’m on Fire” and “Racing in the Street.” Speaking of "Racing in the Street," a humorous episode occurred during that song as drummer Rich Hodder went outside to relieve himself during the beginning of the song, figuring he'd have plenty of time to get back in by the time he had to kick in with the drums. Unfortunately the door wound up locking behind him and he was stuck outside in the cold. Amidst all of the noise, nobody could hear him pounding on it to get back in. He had to run around the house to the front, eventually made it in and hightailed it back to his drum kit.
By the end of the evening enthusiasm had turned to borderline chaos as guys and girls ran to the stage area singing along on our microphones, playing tambourines and snapping photos. At the end of the night when the show was finally done and the crowd was filtering out saxophonist Bill “Butterfingers” Shanker put an exclamation point on the evening by dropping one of the PA speaker cabinets into the fire alarm, setting it off and sending the cabinet crashing to the floor. Thankfully the cops were cool, no major damage was sustained by the equipment and we all had a good laugh. Thanks to Mike and Gage at DKE for their unbridled enthusiasm, hospitality and delicious Keystone beer.

Edgar's Pub 11/28/09

This was our first time playing at Edgar's in Manasquan and by all measures it was a great night. The show featured our longest set list to date, a whopping 40 songs in all that included several debuts such as "Hearts of Stone," "The Ties That Bind" and "Downbound Train." We also kicked off the holiday season with the yuletide favorites "Merry Christmas Baby" and "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town." One of the more unique aspects of the night came late into the second set when a lovely female patron generously bought the entire band a round of shots and then politely requested that we perform "Thunder Road" a second time since she had arrived after we already played it. We obliged. Two songs later she was back with another round of shots, this time requesting a repeat performance of "Born to Run." We were really torn as to what to do, not wanting to bore the rest of the audience who had already heard the song a half hour earlier, but in the end we wound up playing it again and if people were unhappy, they didn't show it. Who knows, maybe next time out people will start countering by buying us shots to try to persuade us NOT to play a song a second time.
We had an excellent crowd on hand and the whole staff at Edgar's was really great. Thanks to all who came out to see us. Hope you had a great time.