Bruce Springsteen, 2007.

In August Bruce Springsteen wasn’t only in the news for announcing his largest ever Australasian tour (for February and March 2014), but because Bruce himself sent out his first ever tweet. Obviously one of those stories made more headlines than the other, but nevertheless, when @springsteen said on August 20th: “Bruce here… looking forward to seeing friends in Chile, Argentina & Brazil on tour next month. Any requests?”, it caused a minor Twitter sensation.

The Bruce Springsteen Twitter account has been going for some time and across 1600 tweets has garnered almost half a million followers, but until August 20th there’d never been a tweet actually from The Boss.

To answer his question, I admitted I was from New Zealand as opposed to Chile, Argentina or Brazil, but that regardless, Racing In The Street is the song I’d most love to hear him perform live. If you are unfamiliar with this monumentally sad song, click here to read my recent blog about why Bruce has never released a proper greatest hits album. The piece features the audio of a live version of Racing In The Street which if for nothing other than the three-minute instrumental at the end would probably still be my favourite song in the Springsteen catalogue.

Bruce Springsteen circa 1973/74.

It seems hyperbolic to suggest a three-minute instrumental as part of an eight-minute long song could still leave you wanting more, but Racing In Street, particularly in this 1980 live incarnation (the studio version from 1978’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town is two-minutes shorter), is truly one of the most beautifully sad musical moments I’ve ever heard.

Back to Bruce’s suggestion of requests, how about a whole concert worth of requests from one person and let’s hypothetically call that person “Tim Roxborogh”? Being that Bruce normally plays 30 songs in his three-hour-plus sets, here are the 30 songs I’d most love to hear at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland on March 1st, 2014:

1: Spirit In The Night
2: Born To Run
3: Thunder Road
4: Backstreets
5: Jungleland
6: She’s The One
7: The Promised Land
8: Racing In The Street
9: Darkness On The Edge Of Town
10: The River
11: Independence Day
12: Hungry Heart
13: Atlantic City
14: Born In The USA
15: Dancing In The Dark
16: Downbound Train
17: I’m On Fire
18: Darlington County
19: I’m Goin’ Down
20: Valentine’s Day
21: Two Faces
22: Tougher Than The Rest
23: Streets Of Philadelphia
24: Secret Garden
25: The Ghost Of Tom Joad
26: Land Of Hope And Dreams
27: My City Of Ruins
28: Radio Nowhere
29: Death To My Hometown
30: We Take Care Of Our Own

These aren’t necessarily my 30 favourite Bruce Springsteen songs, but they’re pretty close. For debate with the diehard fans, there are nine songs from the 70s, 12 from the 80s, four from the 90s, three from the 00s and two from the current decade. This isn’t also the setlist order, but for ease of my compiling of the songs, this is in close chronological order. Fellow Springsteen fans will probably be aghast at the song selection for various reasons, but that’s part of the fun.