Bruce Springsteen covers Lorde's 'Royals' at New Zealand concert - watch

March 1, 2014 17:58

The Boss takes on 17-year-old star's hit, calls himself 'King B'

Bruce Springsteen covered Lorde's 'Royals' during a concert in New Zealand.

The Boss was performing at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland on Saturday (March 1), home of the Vodafone Warriors and Auckland Football Federation, when he broke into the song, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica. You can watch fan-filmed footage of the performance below.

It was a largely faithful cover, although he did tweak a few of the original lyrics and refer to himself at "King B" in the chorus. Naturally, being Lorde's home country, there was an ecstatic response from the crowd when they realised what he was playing.

She's not the first artist from Down Under to be honoured by Springsteen in this way. While touring Australia last month, he covered a number of songs by Aussie artists including 'Highway To Hell' AC/DC, for which he brought on stage Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, 'Stayin' Alive' by The Bee Gees, 'Friday On My Mind' by The Easybeats and INXS' 'Don't Change'. Last year, he covered 'Just Like Fire Would' by Australian band The Saints, a studio version of which features on his most-recent album, 'High Hopes'.

The performance in Auckland was only Springsteen's second-ever show in the country, and his first there in 11 years. He plays one more show in the country before returning to the US, where he'll perform a five-week run of shows.

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Anna Calvi announces UK tour, streams Bruce Springsteen cover – listen

December 19, 2013 18:27

The singer songwriter has released a version of 'Fire' which was written by The Boss

Anna Calvi has announced plans for tour of the UK and Ireland, set to take place in February 2014.

The nine-date tour includes a previously announced gig at London's Troxy on February 8. The tour kicks off at Dublin Vicar Street on February 1 and includes shows in Belfast, Glasgow, Leeds, Leeds, Manchester and Brighton, before coming to an end on February 12 at the Komedia in Bath. Scroll down for full dates.

Meanwhile, Calvi has covered the Bruce Springsteen-penned 'Fire' as the B-side to her current single, 'Suddenly'. Click above to listen to Calvi's brooding version of the track, which was written in 1977 but not released by Springsteen until 1987, following a Pointer Sisters take on the song, which came out in 1978. Calvi released her second album, 'One Breath', in October, the follow-up to her self-titled 2011 debut.

Anna Calvi will play:

Dublin Vicar Street (February 1, 2014)
Belfast Empire (2)
Leeds Met University (4)
Glasgow The Arches (5)
Manchester Albert Hall (6)
London Troxy (8)
Birmingham Institute (10)
Brighton All Saints Church (11)
Bath Komedia (12)

To check the availability of Anna Calvi tickets and get all the latest listings, go to NME.COM/TICKETS now, or call 0844 858 6765

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Bruce Springsteen & Eddie Vedder Duet At Wrigley Field: Watch

by Jessica Letkemann  |   September 08, 2012 11:25 EDT

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band welcomed both Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello to the mic during a three and half hour show at Chicago's Wrigley Field Friday (September 7). Chicago-native Vedder joined the Boss about an hour into the epic set for a duet on "Atlantic City," becoming a trending topic on Twitter.

Before the night was over, Springsteen and co. had not only roared through 28 songs from throughout his four-decade career (1973's "Spriit In The Night," 2012's "We Are Alive"), he'd also brought out Morello, who appears on Springsteen's 2012 album "Wrecking Ball," for "Death To My Hometown," "Jack of All Trades" and "Ghost of Tom Joad." The evening's five-song encore came to a crescendo with both Vedder and Morello joining the Boss and the band for "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" and a cover of "Twist and Shout."

Vedder has previously shared the stage with Springsteen only a handful of times, including a 2002 Chicago Springsteen show, a pair of 2004 concerts in New Jersey and Washington DC related to the Vote For Change tour. In 2009, he performed for Springsteen at the Kennedy Center Honors Springsteen gala. This Wrigley Springsteen show caps a week Vedder began in Philadelphia sharing a stage with Jay-Z during Pearl Jam's set at the Made In America festival Sunday while Springsteen headlined a tireless two-nighter across town at Citizen's Bank Park. Morello has previously guested with the Boss as recently as earlier this year.

Springsteen's "Wrecking Ball" world tour, which has already swung through the U.S. and Europe and which has been hitting the three-hour-plus mark regularly, returns to Chicago's Wrigley Field tonight (September 8) for the second show of a two-night stand.

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Springsteen Breaks London Curfew, Gets Silenced After McCartney Jam

by The Associated Press  |   July 15, 2012 1:25 EDT

Concert organizers pulled the plug on rock stars Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney after the pair defied the sound curfew at London's Hyde Park, silencing their microphones at the tail end of the show.

Springsteen had already exceeded the 10:30 p.m. curfew by half an hour Saturday night when he welcomed McCartney on stage and the pair sang the Beatles hits "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Twist and Shout." But the microphones were turned off before they could thank the crowd, forcing them to leave the stage in silence.

A statement from concert organizer Live Nation said it was unfortunate that Springsteen's three-hour-plus performance was stopped "right at the very end," but it said that the curfew had been laid down by the authorities "in the interest of the public's health and safety."

Huge concerts in Hyde Park, a 350-acre (140-hectare) expanse of landscaped garden and parkland that abuts some of London's wealthiest neighborhoods, have increasingly caused friction between fans and the area's well-heeled residents, many of whom gripe about the late-night noise and nuisance.

With complaints on the rise, local officials have decided that as of next year, the number of concerts will be slashed from 13 to nine. Also in 2013, they plan to reduce crowd limits from 80,000 to 65,000.

Steven Van Zandt, who plays guitar in Springsteen's E-Street Band, criticized Saturday's decision as heavy-handed.

"English cops may be the only individuals left on earth that wouldn't want to hear one more from Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney!" he wrote on Twitter. "On a Saturday night! Who were we disturbing?" Finally he added: "There's no grudges to be held. Just feel bad for our great fans. ... It's some City Council stupid rule."

London's flamboyant mayor, Boris Johnson, said Sunday that the singers should have been allowed to keep going.

"It sounds to me like an excessively efficacious decision," he told London radio. "You won't get that during the Olympics. If they'd have called me, my answer would have been for them to jam in the name of the Lord!"

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Springsteen storms through London marathon

U.S. singer Bruce Springsteen performs with the E. Street Band during their European tour to promote their latest album ''Wrecking Ball'' in Frankfurt May 25, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Alex Domanski

By Angus MacSwan

LONDON | Sun Jul 15, 2012 7:02am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - An epic Bruce Springsteen concert in London's Hyde Park ended on Saturday with organisers pulling the plug with the singer and ex-Beatle Paul McCartney still on stage and playing at full throttle after more than three hours of music.

Springsteen had danced and worked the crowd with the energy of a man of half his 62 years, running through most of his classics before being joined by McCartney to rip through the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Twist and Shout".

The pair were still singing for 65,000 rained-soaked but rapturous fans when the organisers turned off the microphones in line with an agreed 10.30 p.m. curfew.

The Hard Rock Calling festival was the New Jersey native's 45th show in a 67-date tour of North America and Europe tied to "Wrecking Ball", a new album full of angry songs about corporate greed and the plight of ordinary working men and women.

Unlike on other dates, when he has introduced new songs such as "Jack of All Trades" and "Shackled and Drawn" with commentaries on the economic crisis, he avoided political polemics for the most part in a city that has been rocked by a new round of banking scandals in the past month. The focus was on having a giant street party.

Springsteen opened with "Thunder Road", standing alone at the microphone accompanied only by pianist Roy Bittan. It was, he noted, the first song he had played in his debut appearance in London at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1975.

He followed that with "Badlands", the crowd singing along word for word and its apt refrain of "poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king, and a king ain't satisfied 'til he rules everything". With "City of Ruins", he paid tribute to lost friends, notably Clarence Clemons, his longtime comrade in arms, saxophone player and stage foil, who died last year.

This was the E Street Band's first tour since then but Clarence's nephew Jake has stepped into his big shoes admirably.

A BEATLE AND THE BOSS

With a repetoire of the depth of Springsteen's, the hits are not necessarily the highlights. The relatively obscure "Johnny 99" became a rollicking romp with New Orleans style horns.

Several of the new songs are raucous Irish jigs with stinging lyics - "send the robber barons straight to hell, the greedy thieves who came around and ate the flesh of everything they found" he sang on "Death to my Hometown".

He also paid tribute to folk singer Woody Guthrie on the 100th anniversary of his birth, with "the Ghost of Tom Joad", a dustbowl ballad named for John Steinbeck's hero. Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine added searing guitar.

Another star guest, former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty joined him for "Promised Land". The crowd, standing ankle-deep in mud as the rain lashed down, sang along to "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" then listened in hushed mood to a mournful "The River", his ballad of youth's crushed dreams.

The show climaxed with "Born in the USA" - the title track of the 1984 album that catapaulted him to superstardom, his anthem "Born to Run", and "Dancing in the Dark" before McCartney walked on.

"I've waited 50 years for this," Springsteen shouted.

Despite being a multi-millionaire, Springsteen has stuck to his image as champion of the underdog as well as master of ceremonies at the most exuberant of rock'n' roll parties. He never fails to give value for money - his show in Madrid on June 17 was the longest he has ever played, clocking in at 3 hours and 48 minutes. And he is still winning new fans.

"I'm a new convert," said Anna, a 25-year-old nurse from High Wycombe, as the crowd streamed away. "My dad was into him so I used to think he was uncool. I came with my dad tonight and now I see what all the fuss is about it."

(Reporting by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Patrick Graham)

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Country Countdown: Eric Church Takes 'Springsteen' to No. 1

Sometimes confident predictions turn out to be more than just cheerleading. When Eric Church surprised the music industry with simultaneous No. 1 debuts on the Billboard 200 and Country Albums with "Chief" last summer, then-EMI Nashville/Capitol Nashville president Mike Dungan (now in a similar role at Universal Music Group Nashville) predicted a pair of back-to-back No. 1 singles from the album.

"I can comfortably project that our next single will be a No. 1 single at radio, which will be massive for him, because we haven't had anything near that so far. And then we'll follow it up with another No. 1. I feel very comfortable with that," Dungan told Billboard last summer, two weeks after the album's lead single "Homeboy" peaked at No. 13 on the July 30, 2011 Country Songs chart -- then made good on the first half of the projection when second single "Drink in My Hand" capped the January 28 list.

The promise of Dungan's prediction is fully realized this week, as third single "Springsteen" becomes the artist's second No. 1 on Country Songs (2-1).

The new No. 1 reaches the summit four weeks faster (19 weeks) than his first, which needed 23 weeks to ring the top bell. On its way to No. 1 on the radio list, "Springsteen" dominated Country Digital Songs for four weeks, with sales of more than 1.2 million downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It holds at No. 3 this week (78,000 sold). Now at No. 6 in its 46th week on the Country Albums chart -- all but nine of those weeks inside the top 10 -- "Chief" has sold 855,000 so far.

Also noteworthy on Country Songs is the 15th top 10 for Dierks Bentley, noted as "5-1-5-0" advances 11-10. Concurrently, the third single from Bentley's "Home" album -- the artist's second straight top 10 contender on Country Digital Songs -- sells 44,000 downloads, ranking at No. 8. The album's title track became Bentley's first top 10 on the digital tally, peaking at No. 8 in February. The digital tally is led for a third consecutive week by Bentley's label mate Luke Bryan, whose "Drunk on You" sells 109,000 downloads during the Nielsen SoundScan tracking week.

Alan Jackson Has Top Debut on Billboard 200

With Hot Shot Debut honors at No. 27, Zac Brown Band splashes onto Country Songs with the second-highest Nielsen BDS-era debut by a group, as "The Wind" bows with airplay at 85 of the 131 stations monitored for the chart. Among groups during that time frame, Rascal Flatts' "Take Me There" posted the highest arrival when it debuted at No. 24 on the July 21, 2007 chart. Lady Antebellum holds the third-highest start, set when "Just a Kiss" popped onto the May 21, 2011 chart at No. 28. "The Wind" is the lead single from Zac Brown Band's third studio set, "Uncaged," which is scheduled for release July 10.

Meanwhile, Zac Brown's fellow Georgia native Alan Jackson claims his 13th No. 1 on Country Albums with "Thirty Miles West," his 15th non-seasonal studio album and his first for EMI Nashville -- all of his previous sets were issued by Arista Nashville, dating back to 1990. The new album pops on with 73,000 sold, good for a No. 2 start on the Billboard 200. His chart history includes 26 No. 1's on Country Songs, most recently as guest singer on Zac Brown Band's "As She's Walking Away" two years ago. Jackson's new album features Brown's group on a track titled "Dixie Highway."

Jana Kramer Gave Up 'One Tree Hill' for Music Dreams

Singer and "One Tree Hill" actress Jana Kramer's self-titled rookie album opens at No. 5 on Country Albums, marking the highest arrival for a woman's debut set since Lauren Alaina's "Wildflower" entered at No. 2 last fall. Kramer's current single "Why Ya Wanna" rises 18-17 in its 25th week on the radio-driven Country Songs chart.

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Hot Tours: Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay

by Bob Allen  |   May 04, 2012 1:50 EDT

Radiohead scores a No. 1 ranking on the latest Hot Tours tally with ticket sales reported from two concerts in Mexico City during April. Touring in support of its album "The King of Limbs" released in 2011, the English rock band performed at the outdoor sports stadium, Foro Sol in the Mexican capitol city on April 17 and 18.  Attendance for both nights totaled 87,986, generating more than 63.2 million pesos in ticket sales revenue ($4.7 million US$).  Opening acts for both performances were Caribou and Other Lives.  Radiohead launched its 2012 tour in Miami in late February and performed in 13 U.S. cities before playing the two shows in Mexico.  The band also appeared at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California on April 14 and 21.
Coldplay, No. 3 on the current Hot Tours recap, has kicked off the North American leg of its "Mylo Xyloto" Tour that began with a European trek during the last three months of 2011.  The first concert this year was in Canada at Edmonton's 17,500-seat arena, Rexall Place on April 17. With Metronomy and The Pierces providing support, the Grammy-winning band grossed more than $1.2 million from 14,306 sold tickets.  The first U.S. venue on the current leg was the Rose Garden in Portland with a sold out performance on April 24.  With 12,966 sold seats, the arena box office reported ticket sales topping the $1 million mark.  The tour follows the 2011 release of the band's fifth studio album, "Mylo Xyloto," and will continue through late-September.

Canadian rock band Nickelback lands on the Hot Tours chart this week at No. 9 with the first performance reported from its Here and Now Tour that began in early April.  Montreal's Bell Centre garnered over $1 million in ticket revenue from a sold out concert on April 21 with a crowd totaling 13,688.  Bush, Seether and My Darkest Days were the show openers.  Nickelback will be performing at North American arenas through the end of June, followed by a string of outdoor amphitheater dates during July.  A European leg of the tour will begin in early September.

Artist/Event
Total Gross
Show Dates
Show Venue/City (Shows/Sellouts)
Total Attendance (Capacity)BRYAN ADAMS
Centre Georges-Vézina, Chicoutimi, Quebec (1/1)Colisée Pepsi, Quebec City (1/1)CIRQUE DU SOLEIL'S MICHAEL JACKSON TOUR
Bryce Jordan Center, University Park, Pa. (1/0)Colonial Life Arena, Columbia, S.C. (2/0)ERICH CHURCH
Nationwide Arena, Columbus, Ohio (1/1)Rupp Arena, Lexington, Ky. (1/1)U.S. Cellular Coliseum, Bloomington, Ill. (1/1)NOEL GALLAGHER'S HIGH FLYING BIRDS
PULP Palacio de los Deportes, Mexico City (1/0)

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Clemons' death leaves void for Springsteen (AP)

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Entertainment Writer David Bauder, Ap Entertainment Writer – Sun Jun 19, 9:45 pm ET

NEW YORK – E Street will never be quite the same.

The death of saxophone player Clarence Clemons ripped a hole in Bruce Springsteen's music and onstage life, taking away a figure who had served him loyally for decades and never failed to add joy to the E Street Band's epic performances.

Clemons died Saturday at age 69, about a week after he suffered a stroke at his home in Singer Island, Fla.

It's not the first loss for the rock world's best-known and most accomplished backup band. Keyboard player Danny Federici died in 2008 of melanoma. Steve Van Zandt, Springsteen's youthful friend and closest partner, left for several years in the 1980s and was replaced on guitar by Nils Lofgren. When Van Zandt returned, Lofgren stayed.

Yet Clemons' loss cuts deeply into the soul of the band. His importance was acknowledged whenever Springsteen performed "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out," when he sang, "We made that change uptown and the Big Man joined the band," inevitably followed by a wail of Clemons' sax and a roar from the crowd. The two men met in 1971 on the New Jersey bar band circuit, and when Springsteen released his debut album two years later, Clemons left a more successful outfit for a new Boss.

Inevitably Clemons' introduction was the climax every night when Springsteen presented the individual band members to the audience, accompanied by a variety of regal nicknames like "Master of the Universe" and "King of the World."

"Do I have to say his name?" Springsteen would shout to the crowd.

"No!" came the roar back. He did anyway.

A makeshift memorial of flowers, candles and photos grew outside of the Stone Pony nightclub in Asbury Park, N.J., home turf where Clemons and Springsteen made frequent stage appearances through the years.

At the Clearwater music festival in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y. on Sunday, the Drive-By Truckers took the stage for their show with "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" playing over the public address system. Singer Patterson Hood looked skyward and dedicated the band's set to Clemons.

Last fall's release of "The Promise," which included a DVD of a 1978 Springsteen concert performance, underscored the central role of Clemons in the act. The two men were a marked physical contrast: a bedraggled, slightly scrawny white guitar player and a 6-foot-5-inch, 270-plus-pound black man with a sax — known simply as the Big Man _who would be intimidating if he didn't so often carry a smile.

They would stalk each other on the stage, staring with ferocious eyes, and play their instruments as they stood back to back, leaning on the other for support. They'd even kiss, their relationship sending a message of brotherhood, family and — given racial undertones — tolerance and respect for all.

The relationship was captured memorably with a giant photo of the two men on the cover of Springsteen's "Born to Run" album.

Clemons was musically vital, too, particularly given the longer, structurally ambitious songs Springsteen was writing in the 1970s, a potent mixture of rock, soul, jazz and folk. Clemons' sax kicked "Born to Run" into overdrive, and his solo was a key moment in the majestic "Jungleland." He had a deep, booming voice not often displayed, although he added hearty "ho-ho-ho's" during seasonal renditions of "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town."

Truth be told, Clemons' role in the E Street Band diminished as the years went on. Springsteen's simpler song structures left less space for the sax, and the instrument competed to be heard in a dense wall of sound anchored by three electric guitar players. Clemons would add maracas or tambourines to some of Springsteen's compositions.

Clemons' physical ailments also made him a less active presence onstage. He underwent spinal surgery last year after many years of back pain and spent time in a wheelchair after double knee replacement surgery.

Springsteen generously made accommodations for the ailments, installing an elevator on the stage set for when Clemons couldn't negotiate the stairs, according to Caryn Rose and Glenn Radecki of the Springsteen website Backstreets. A throne-like golden chair was placed onstage for when Clemons needed his rest.

Clemons' death is unlikely to bring an end to the E Street Band, which Springsteen alluded to in a statement posted on his website Saturday announcing the death.

"We are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly 40 years," he said. "He was my great friend, my partner and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band."

But the loss leaves Springsteen with a real challenge moving forward. While Federici's contributions were valued and respected, he was a back bencher, tied to the shadows of the stage and his replacement not a major issue for the casual fan.

Clemons was different, and his loss will inevitably change the onstage dynamic. The saxophone is such a major presence in Springsteen's music that it's difficult to imagine many of his songs being performed without it. They will be big shoes for anyone to fill.

"As long as we tell the stories, as long as we play the songs, the Big Man will always be with us," Rose and Radecki wrote on Backstreets following Clemons' death.

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Bruce Springsteen singing on new Pete Seeger album

Musician Bruce Springsteen arrives on the red carpet to attend the screening of the film ''The Promise: The Making Of Darkness On The Edge Of Town'' at the Rome Film Festival November 1, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Alessia Pierdomenico

By Phil Gallo

Wed Jun 15, 2011 10:23pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Bruce Springsteen has recorded a new Pete Seeger song for a Seeger album that is penciled in for release this holiday season.

Springsteen sings two verses and a chorus on "God is Counting on Us," a song Seeger wrote in response to the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Appleseed Recordings will release the Seeger album.

The song will be the sixth exclusive Springsteen song that Appleseed has released in conjunction with its various Seeger projects, label owner Jim Musselman told Billboard.com. The Boss has had tracks on 1998's "Where Have all the Flowers Gone," 2007's Sowing the Seeds" and 2007's "Give Us Your Poor" among others.

"Tomorrow's Children," the latest Seeger recording from Appleseed, won the Grammy this year for musical album for children. Seeger, 92, has been honored with Grammys, a Kennedy Center Award, the Presidential Medal of the Arts and a Lifetime Legends medal from the Library of Congress.

Springsteen paid tribute to Seeger in 2006 with his album "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" and a subsequent live album featuring performances of the recordings.

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Bruce Springsteen singing on new Pete Seeger album (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) – Bruce Springsteen has recorded a new Pete Seeger song for a Seeger album that is penciled in for release this holiday season.

Springsteen sings two verses and a chorus on "God is Counting on Us," a song Seeger wrote in response to the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Appleseed Recordings will release the Seeger album.

The song will be the sixth exclusive Springsteen song that Appleseed has released in conjunction with its various Seeger projects, label owner Jim Musselman told Billboard.com. The Boss has had tracks on 1998's "Where Have all the Flowers Gone," 2007's Sowing the Seeds" and 2007's "Give Us Your Poor" among others.

"Tomorrow's Children," the latest Seeger recording from Appleseed, won the Grammy this year for musical album for children. Seeger, 92, has been honored with Grammys, a Kennedy Center Award, the Presidential Medal of the Arts and a Lifetime Legends medal from the Library of Congress.

Springsteen paid tribute to Seeger in 2006 with his album "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" and a subsequent live album featuring performances of the recordings.

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