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2000 January VH1: 100 Greatest Rock Songs includes Born To Run at #5 and Thunder Road at #96 February 23 "The Promise" is nominated for two Grammy Awards. It loses in the Best Rock Song category to The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Lenny Kravitz takes home the award in the Best Male Rock Vocal category. February 28 The 2000 leg of The Reunion Tour, consisting of 44 shows, starts in State College, Pennsylvania. “Lion’s Den” is performed in honor of Penn State University’s Nittany Lions. March 31 High Fidelity, a movie adaptation of Nick Hornsby’s novel premieres in the US. Bruce has a small cameo in it. May 27 Bruce plays in Las Vegas for the first time. June 4 Two new songs called Further On (Up The Road) and American Skin (41 Shots) are debuted. American Skin is based on the controversial shooting of Amadou Diallo by NYC Police. Several members of the New York Police association publicly attack Bruce. Some of them later admit they had never heard the song or even read the lyrics. June 12-July 1 Even though controversy surrounds the song, American Skin (41 shots) is played at all ten shows at the Madison Square Garden. Several of the shows are recorded for a possible live album and DVD. The final night, July 1, sees a show with rare concert performances of The E-Street Shuffle and Lost In the Flood. Bruce ends the night and the tour on a very emotional note by singing “Blood Brothers” with revised lyrics to reflect his (everybody’s) feelings. July Bruce tops Pollstar's list of top grossing concert tours for 2000. November Rolling Stone and MTV 100 Greatest Pop Songs includes Born To Run at #35. Decmber 3 The Red Bank branch of the NAACP awards Bruce with a humanitarian Community Service Award. December 17-18 Two Christmas benefit shows are held in Asbury Park’s Convention Hall. The shows benefit 8 different New Jersey based charities. The shows have guest appearances by Max and his band “The Max Weinberg 7”, Southside Johnny, Bobby Bandiera and the entire “E-Street Band”. The shows are the final Bruce Springsteen shows of the millennium and sees the debut of a new song called “My City Of Ruins” dedicated to Asbury Park, New Jersey. 2001 January The 1996 documentary “Blood Brothers” is released on DVD. Another DVD called “The Complete Video Anthology 1978-2000” which contains the previously released VHS material plus some added videos is also released. January 25 Bruce loses a legal battle against Jeff Burgar. He is the owner of the domain name www.brucespringsteen.com and managed to convince the court that he has some legitimate interest in the domain name. The World Intellectual Property Organization handled the case. Bruce’s official site can be found at www.brucespringsteen.net March The singles “Cover Me” and “My Hometown” are certified gold. March 27 A live album, “Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band: Live In New York City” is finally released. It debuts at number 5 in the US, number 9 in England and number 1 in Italy. It would top the Billboard Internet Sales Charts for 2 weeks. At midnight, Bruce pays a surprise visit to “Jacks” a Red Bank, NJ record store. Lucky fans who were waiting in line to purchase the Live album got to spend two hours with Bruce who chatted, posed for pictures and signed autographs for everybody. April HBO airs “Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band: Live In New York City” which is a collection of songs from the final two nights at the Meadowlands on The Reunion Tour. May “Live in NYC” is certified gold. VH1: Greatest Videos includes Dancing In The Dark at #75 June Bruce and the band are nominated for 6 Emmy Awards for their HBO TV special. Bruce and Patti also attend the premiere of a movie called “Greenfingers” which uses the Lucky Town album version of “If I Should Fall Behind” in its soundtrack. August 18 Bruce appears at the Clearwater Festival in Asbury Park and performs an acoustic set. September 21 Bruce opens the telethon “America, A Tribute To Heroes” which was aired by all major networks in order to raise money for the families of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Bruce performed “My City Of Ruins” which had slightly revised lyrics. October 19-20 Bruce appears at the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, NJ. These were two benefit shows for the Monmouth County “Alliance For Neighbors” assisting victims’ families of the 9-11 tragedy. November 6 The “Live In New York City” DVD is released. It includes the HBO TV special and an additional 11 songs (80 minutes) not seen in the special. It will top the Billboard Music Video Charts for a week. December 3-8 Just like the previous year, Bruce puts on Holiday Shows in Asbury Park benefiting organizations in Jersey. 2002 March 11 Bruce, Steve Van Zandt and Bono appear at the 15th Annual Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Foundation Silver Cleff Award Dinner, which honors rock agent Frank Barsalona. April 13-14 Bruce puts on two invitation only shows at the stone pony with all proceeds going to the Rumson County Day School. Bruce performs the song “Darlington County”, by request. It was thought the song would never be sung again because it contains the line “Our Pa’s each own one of the World Trade Centers. For a kiss and a smile I’ll give mine all to you”. The lines were not left out of the song. Spring Rumors of a new album, hitting stores in early July are going the rounds. May It becomes public knowledge that Bruce previewed songs of a forthcoming album to Sony executives. The five new songs previewed are “Mary’s Place”, “Nothing Man”, “The Rising”, “Lonesome Day” and “Into The Fire”. The songs are said to be amazing. May 18 Bruce is in Freehold, NJ, for the dedication of a local park in honor of Gordon “Tex” Vineyard. Tex helped out Bruce and his first band, The Castiles during the 1960’s. Marion Vineyard, Tex’s wife and George Theiss a member of The Castiles are also present. July “The Rising Tour” is announced. The first leg consists of “barnstorming” one night stands in 46 different cities followed by a second leg of multiple nights in cities in the US, Europe and Australia. July 30 “The Rising” is released and quickly jumps to number one in the charts and in sales figures. It is Bruce’s first collaboration with the full E-Street Band since 1984 (BITUSA), his first full new material album since 1995 (TGOTJ) and his first rock album since 1992's "Human Touch" and "Lucky Town". August 5 Bruce appears on the cover of “Time” August 7 “The Rising Tour” starts with a show at the Continental Airlines Arena in the New Jersey Meadowlands. August Bruce and the band perform live on “The Today Show” from Asbury Park. August 22 Bruce appears on the cover of Rolling Stone for the eleventh time. August Bruce hit the top 40 with “The Rising” “The Rising” tops the Billboard top 200 LP chart selling over 525.000 in its first week of release in the US. “The Rising” tops the Billboard Top Ten Album Sales chart and the LP charts in the UK and Canada. Bruce could be heard on the tribute “Kindred Spirits: A Tribute To Johnny Cash” with “Give My Love To Rose” September Bruce ranked #59 on VH1: 100 Sexiest Artists. October 5 Bruce and The E-Street Band are the musical guests on Saturday Night Live and perform two songs, Lonesome Day and You’re Missing (Bruce solo on piano). October 16 “The Rising Tour” kicks off the European leg of the barnstorming tour with a show in Barcelona, Spain. “The Rising” is certified 2x platinum. November A show in Texas is postponed as Clarence Clemons suffers an eye injury. Bruce hits the top 40 with “Lonesome Day” December Rolling Stone’s readers pick Bruce and The Rising as the years “Best Album Of The Year”, “Artist Of The Year”, “Best Rock Artist”, “Most Welcome Comeback” and “Best Tour”. The critics too choose “The Rising Tour” as the best tour of the year. 2003 February Bruce wins 3 Grammy’s for Best Rock Album (The Rising), Best Male Rock Vocal Performance (The Rising) and Best Rock Song (The Rising). He was also nominated for album of the year and song of the year but missed out on those awards. The awards that Bruce did win were not given out during the televised part of the show. Bruce performed The Rising at the ceremony and was also part of a tribute to Joe, singing London Calling. March Bruce and the band set yet another record when they sell out 7 Giant Stadium shows in one single day. June "Born In The USA" comes in at number 29 on VH1’s “100 best songs of the past 25 years” June 28 The last European show of “The Rising Tour” takes place in Milan, Italy. From the start the show is set out to be a memorable one. The setlist includes rarely performed songs like “Growin’ Up” and “Who’ll Stop The Rain” and what would be, the only tour rendition of “Follow That Dream”. The show closes with “Rosalita” which sees it’s European return since its last performance in 1975. About 45 minutes into the show, heavy rains and thunder and lightning pay a visit and it keeps raining on and off for most of the rest of the show. Just like the 80.000 fans in the stadium, Bruce doesn’t let the rain get to him. Afterwards, it was said that Bruce ranked the Milan show in his top ten of best shows ever. September Bruce plays the first ever concert allowed at Boston’s Fenway Park. "The River" album is certified 5x platinum October After 14 months of touring, “The Rising” tour comes to an end with a 3-night stand in New York’s Shea Stadium. Just like The Reunion Tour, the final song of the night is “Blood Brothers” and thus comes to an end to an incredible year and a half. November “The Essential Bruce Springsteen” is released. Two different versions can be bought. The first one has two discs, while the second version has an extra disc with previously unreleased songs. The DVD “Live in Barcelona” is released and is the first full live concert released by Bruce. December Bruce ends the year on top of the year-end box-office earnings with concert earnings of $115.9 million. “Essential Bruce Springsteen” is certified platinum December 3-9 Christmas Shows at the Convention Hall in Asbury Park, NJ. All proceeds benefit charities in New Jersey. 2004 February Bruce wins a Grammy for “Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group” for his collaboration with the late Warren Zevon on “Disorder in The House” from Zevon’s album “The Wind”. |