Surprise, surprise ...

My friend Dave, from Dave Wright & the Midnight Electric, asked a few days ago if I'd be free to help with a 'project' on Sunday (yesterday). I said of course. He picked me up at 1:00. As we pulled onto a nearby street he said his wife Effie and their twin girls were at a park around the corner from my place. He asked if I wanted to say hello. I said of course. We parked and walked over to them -- one of the girls, Memphis, ran up and hugged my legs -- and after saying hello to Effie and the other twin Sophia, Dave tilted his head in the direction of picnic tables about 10 metres away. I looked that way and saw a good 2 dozen friends: Dave had organised a surprise goodbye picnic.

'Shocked' doesn't begin to describe my mindset. Later on in the day it occurred that I'd never been the recipient of a surprise party. Ever. It was like getting tossed into a pool of ice blocks. My friends, of course, melted those blocks instantaneously and embraced me in a hold that kept me from running back to my place and reclaiming my hermit throne.

Amid the colossal spread of food and booze everyone had brought, there was even a beautiful goodbye gift:

Oh ... why the goodbyes? I've taken a job in Auckland. Rented a place in an Auckland suburb called Devonport. Moving at the end of the month.

After Dave presented the gift and said several kind words I coughed up thanks and tried to express appreciation for the collection of people I've been lucky to call friends here in Melbourne. When Aradhna and I moved to Victoria in December 2007 we knew no one -- literally, no one -- in Melbourne. Bit by bit we began to make friends, mostly through her work, but for me the dam burst after Springsteen's 2014 tour of Australia and New Zealand. I found my Southern Hemisphere kin.

Who are, and always will be, brothers and sisters for life.

Sunday at the Stony Pony V, The Local Taphouse, St Kilda

When I was a kid, the satisfying crux of Christmas was its ritual. Going up to the attic on some ethereally ordained date. Bringing down boxes from another lifetime, before my parents divorced, like an elementary-school-aged mayor unsealing a time capsule every December. There'd be an NFL game on TV, grey sky outside, maybe a flurry or two skipping through bare branches. It being the '70s we had an artificial tree, and it being the only kind of tree we knew, my brother Kevin and I never thought we were missing anything. That tree was crap but I loved every one of its forever mangled, color-coded branches that fit like gnarly pipe cleaners into a green-spray-painted stump. When that tree was upright and adorned with lights the size of XXL eggs I'd stare at it like baby Jesus himself looking up at a sea of wino-looking faces gobsmacked by the kid with a shiny halo around his lumpy skull.

What's this got to do with listening to Asbury Park rock and roll, raising money for charity and drinking the finest craft beer in Melbourne? Nothing, except that as I ponder my motivation for holding five Sundays at the Stone Pony, I realise I'm never happier than the moment I step back from the Local Taphouse's rear wall and gaze upon our pseudo Stone Pony banner hanging exactly as it does in that shitty little brick building on the corner of Ocean Avenue and Second Avenue in Asbury Park. So much of my former life is gone forever but for a few hours the Pony breathes life into my adopted hometown of St Kilda, as far from New Jersey as you can get without boarding a spacecraft. When the first notes of Southside Johnny's 'This Time It's for Real' scream through the speakers I can smell the Atlantic Ocean and sense the ghosts of Palace Amusements and the Casino on the Asbury Park boardwalk of my youth.

I'm going to miss that. Because the magnificent Stone Pony banner that my friend and 'Sunday at the Stone Pony' colleague Piera made back in 2014 will never again grace the Local Taphouse. I'm done trying to tap into whatever fellowship Springsteen's appearance on these shores the past 3 out of 4 years has created. The people have spoken. They don't care. That's life.

We raised a little over $1000 for Lifeline Australia at Stone Pony V but that was due to the obscene generosity of a handful of attendees -- I'm looking at you, Stewie -- and a large contingent of colleagues from the Intrepid Group who boosted attendance numbers that would have otherwise depressed the fuck out of me.

I wouldn't bother to post about something so wildly successful except for the two women who never, and I mean never, fail to humble me with their selflessness and undaunted spirit. I've already mentioned Piera -- her spiritual sister and rock and roll troubadour is Mary. To me they're literally the finest people I've come to call friends during my ten years in Melbourne.

They're two of the finest humans you'll ever meet. They're both genuine Chris Cornell fans and were devastated by his suicide back in May. We never discussed it but held matching opinions that a suicide prevention organisation would benefit from another Sunday at the Stone Pony. They're shown above speaking about the need to raise awareness about suicide, their experiences as teachers working with vulnerable students, firing people up to throw a couple extra bucks into the coffers.

Thank you both. It's been a good run. And thanks to everyone who's come over the years.

Last-minute silent auction preparations.

A small portion of silent auction items.

Mary and Piera even arranged for exclusive Stone Pony V t-shirts to be made.

Selena, Jamie, Piera, Stew and Carly ... legends all.

The Wonder Twins and a Big Galoot.

Dear -- and exceptionally photogenic -- friends Ashmin and Rose.

One last group photo in front of the almighty Stone Pony banner.

Sunday at the Stone Pony 4

And so we gathered for the fourth time on a Sunday afternoon in the seaside suburb of St Kilda in Melbourne's south to celebrate the legendary sounds of Asbury Park and raise money for a worthy cause -- in this case the Rainbow Network, which provides essential services to the Victorian LGBT community.

The original purpose of these gatherings was to evangalise music I grew up with that was synonymous with Bruce Springsteen, i.e. Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, Gary US Bonds, Little Steven, etc. (on this occasion the playlist was dominated by live songs from Springsteen's current 'The River' tour). Like any preacher I wanted as large a flock as possible to gather and listen and spread the gospel of the range of bands that played the Stone Pony in Asbury Park back when it was the center of a bluesy, horns-based musical sound when disco dominated US airwaves.

But a funny thing's happened over the course of four Sunday at the Stone Pony's ... I no longer care about the size of our crowd. Only the quality.

And on this latest Sunday we had spectacular quality.

All told the group of people featured in these photographs raised $865, with the Local Taphouse generously contributing an additional $50.

Thanks to everyone who attended. If there's an SP5 I'm thinking it'll be by invitation only.

As always, nothing happens without the tremendous contributions of Mary (left) and Piera (right). Their generosity and spirit cannot be adequately celebrated. Piera's holding the arm of Carly, who flew in from Sydney to join our soiree. Piera's friend Pauline rounds out the foursome.

If there's a more beautiful smile in Melbourne than Maria's I've yet to witness it. Here she stands beside the day's best dressed man, Jamie, while Rebecca inhales an item off the Local Taphouse's food menu. Somehow, she manages to remain glamorous.

Highlight of the day was the appearance of Dave and Effie Wright's twin daughters Sophia and Memphis. Here, Mary prepares Memphis for a lifetime of wise choices.

Dave holds Sophia while Mary & Piera fuss over Mem.

Richard (left) traveled with his partner Eden (who's not in this or any other non-group photos, unfortunately) to attend SP4. Rita's flashing a perfect smile beside him while Maja focuses on artwork in the arms of mum Sara.

Sophia shoots a look that says "I may be a toddler but I know a photo of me sitting on a bar is NOT dignified" while Stewart shows off the day's most appropriate hooded garment.

Sunday was Dave's actual birthday but Stewart and Michael had recently celebrated theirs so a group cake was arranged and devoured.

Legends. All.

'Til next time.

Light the Dark vigil at O'Donnell Gardens, St Kilda, 7 Sept 2015

The function of the well-intentioned individual, acting in isolation, is to formulate or disseminate theoretical truths. The function of the well-intentioned individuals in association is to live in accordance with those truths, to demonstrate what happens when theory is translated into practice, to create small-scale working models of the better form of society to which the speculative idealist looks forward. -- Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means

It's said we live in an Information Age. But since humankind first made books available in universities and libraries and churches and the marketplace and we've had information at our fingertips.

No, what I believe we live in is an Inhumanity Age. What we have at our instantaneous perusal on expensive gadgets is a world of media depicting the most savage and heinous acts, almost always with delightful arrays of feedback from anonymous, and typically cruel, commentators.

Aylan & Galip

This past week delivered a new but sadly unsurprising image of a 3-year-old Syrian boy named Aylan Kurdi lying dead on a beach. He, his five-year-old brother Galip and their mother, Rehan, died trying to reach the Greek island of Kos from the Turkish resort town of Bodrumget, with the ultimate goal of joining relatives in Canada even though their asylum application had been rejected. The boy's father, Abdullah, survived. (And has since been accused by a soft, bloodless, finely manicured, achingly precious, outspoken Christian conservative Australian MP named Cory Bernardi of endangering and subsequently killing his family for the sake of his dental needs. Another reality of the Inhumanity Age: Every outcry for the dispossessed must be followed by the envious bleatings of a self-absorbed, self-pitying majority.)

Unlike elected trolls like Bernardi, however, most Aussies haven't leapt on this family's tragedy like a jackal on a dying zebra. In fact the plight of millions of Syrian refugees is suddenly front-page news, as is Australia's reaction/non-reaction. The outrage provoked by the photo proves we're not wholly numb -- yet -- but many questioned why nearly five years of war in Syria the horrors inflicted upon civilians had gone almost unnoticed:

The scale of the Syrian tragedy is orders of magnitude greater, and infinitely more variegated, than this one picture, or this one victim’s story, can possibly convey. Over the last four and a half years, an estimated 240,000 people have died in the grinding violence, including nearly 12,000 children. More than half of Syria’s pre-war population—half, the proportional equivalent of nearly 170 million Americans—have been forced to flee their homes, spawning the largest exodus of refugees in a generation. Seven hundred and fifty thousand Syrian children won’t be going back to school this fall.

In Australia, where the Liberal (right-wing) government came to power via a callous 'STOP THE BOATS' campaign, it's shed more unflattering light on a mob who proclaim the glory of coal over the evils of renewable energy, who view marriage equality as a threat to society, and who stand before flowing forests of Australian flags to pronounce new and ever more menacing threats from Islamic terrorists in every nook and cranny of this vast, Christian country. Prime Minister Tony Abbott predictably used what he called the 'tragic' photo to practically stroke his chin and shout 'SEE, I TOLD YOU SO' while piously exhorting the need for countries to adopt 'tough' policies to stop asylum seekers arriving by boat.

This prompted an editorial from the NY Times entitled Australia's Brutal Treatment of Migrants, which offers a better unspooling of Australia's immigration policy than I could offer. Here it is, in its scathing entirety:

Some European officials may be tempted to adopt the hard-line approach Australia has used to stem a similar tide of migrants. That would be unconscionable.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has overseen a ruthlessly effective effort to stop boats packed with migrants, many of them refugees, from reaching Australia’s shores. His policies have been inhumane, of dubious legality and strikingly at odds with the country’s tradition of welcoming people fleeing persecution and war.

Since 2013, Australia has deployed its navy to turn back boats with migrants, including asylum seekers, before they could get close to its shores. Military personnel force vessels carrying people from Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea and other conflict-roiled nations toward Indonesia, where most of the journeys begin. A boat captain recently reported that Australian authorities paid him $30,000 to turn back. If true, that account, which the Australian government has not disputed, would represent a violation of international laws designed to prevent human smuggling and protect asylum seekers.

Those who have not been turned back are held at detention centers run by private contractors on nearby islands, including the tiny nation of Nauru. A report this week by an Australian Senate committee portrayed the Nauru center as a purgatory where children are sexually abused, guards give detainees marijuana in exchange for sex and some asylum seekers are so desperate that they stitch their lips shut in an act of protest. Instead of stopping the abuses, the Australian government has sought to hide them from the world.

The Border Force Act, which took effect July 1, makes it a crime punishable by a two-year prison sentence for employees at detention camps to discuss the conditions there publicly. Australia and Nauru, which depends heavily on Australian foreign aid, have gone to great lengths to keep international journalists from gaining access to the detention center, in which more than 2,200 people have been held since 2012. Last year, Nauru raised the fee it charges for journalists’ visas from $200 to roughly $8,000; applicants who are turned down are not given refunds.

Scores of people who have worked at the camp have become whistle-blowers. More than 40, including medical personnel and social workers, wrote a public letter to senior government officials in July saying they would rather risk arrest than stay quiet. "If we witness child abuse in Australia we are legally obliged to report it to child protection authorities," they wrote. "If we witness child abuse in detention centers, we can go to prison for attempting to advocate for them effectively."

European officials have traveled to Australia on fact-finding missions recently. Mr. Abbott, who argues that aggressively intercepting the boats saves lives, has urged European governments to follow his model, and some European leaders seem so inclined.

“The Australian model may seem attractive to politicians,” said Leonard Doyle, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration. “Politicians love fences, but what fences do is create a market for smugglers and major humanitarian problems.”

The world’s war zones are all but certain to continue to churn out an extraordinary number of refugees and economic migrants in the years ahead. Those people understandably will head to the most prosperous nations, hoping to rebuild their lives. It is inexcusable that some find themselves today in situations that are more hopeless and degrading than the ones that prompted them to flee.

International coverage may be new, but the treatment of foreigners and asylum seekers has been a divisive topic for many years in this faraway land. The Abbott government proclaims humanitarian reasons for STOPPING THE BOATS but it's actually cut by a third the number of refugees it allows into the country since it took office two years ago. It's a clumsy, obvious and disgraceful tilt to those terrified by brown-skinned people. Period.

Because of this politically profitable obsession with tiny numbers of desperate people seeking refuge in a land as prosperous and free as Australia, many Aussies are aware of the journeys attempted by those like Aylan and his family. When the image of his lifeless body became ubiquitous on social media, our handy gadgets and apps made sharing it an act of civil disobedience, a way to provide meaning to such senseless death, and a giant 'fuck you' to the Abbott government.

I'm no genius but a few decades in advertising made me aware of the power of imagery. A beautiful 3-year-old boy lying alone and dead on a beach is inescapably haunting. It hit bone, and across Australia it led to protest:

Tens of thousands of people attended candlelight vigils across Australia in support of refugees on Monday evening, adding their voices to the growing pressure on Australia to accept more people who are fleeing the war in Syria.

Large crowds attended the Light the Dark events in Sydney, Melbourne, Darwin, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart to honour the life of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body was pictured on a Turkish beach, sparking an outcry over Europe’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

The call went out on social media under the hashtags #refugeeswelcome and #LightTheDark, with planned gatherings in major cities as well as more spontaneous events elsewhere.

'Elsewhere' included St Kilda's O'Donnell Gardens beside Luna Park. I'd planned to attend a large gathering in Melbourne's Treasury Gardens but was alerted to the St Kilda vigil by a remarkable local named Fatima Baraka, of whom I'll be writing about in the near future. I arrived a little after 6:00 to find a woman named Brigid Arthur from Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project (BASP) addressing a few dozen people holding candles. A banner drooped behind her. A cold, drizzly wind blew up from the south. Rainbow Lorikeets made their nightly racket in nearby palm trees. Trams rumbled along The Esplanade and Acland Street behind us but all eyes were on Brigid as she spoke into a microphone.

It was sublime.

Why? Like the Border Force protest in front of Flinders Street Station a few weeks ago, it was visceral proof of a functioning democracy. A crowd of over 1,000 attended the rally in Treasury Gardens but in St Kilda it was a chance for concerned locals to show their support AND learn how they could turn beliefs into actions. There were no self-aggrandising politicians soaking up klieg lights, no hair-sprayed reporters checking their smartphones. Yes, local members of council and the mayor of St Kilda were there and gave brief, thoughtful speeches but this wasn't a forum for jaded TV types. It was a collection of citizens who give a damn, who want to help, and with like-minded members of their community will act upon those impulses and try to counteract the damage they see their elected government doing to their country.

Brigid spoke of 'lighting a candle for Aylan' and called attention to the year-round work of organisations like the BASP and Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) who fight against the ignorance and indifference of asshats like Bernardi and the myriad keyboard warriors who interpret compassion for 'others' as a letting down of the guard against religious extremism and murderous groups like ISIS. It's where Murdoch-fueled minions go spiraling into irrelevancy: They see Australia as brittle, easily led astray, ripe for the taking by forces of evil. They can't compute the strength of fellow Aussies standing in solidarity with 'others' seeking better lives for themselves and their families and grieving over an image of a boy they could see playing with his brother on their street, not laying dead on cold sand.

Community compassion is not weakness. It is the antidote to the Inhumanity Age and, hopefully, will burn bright in future generations of Australians. Or, perhaps, just in the young girl shown here. In which last night's Light the Dark vigil in O'Donnell Gardens will have been a rousing success.

Sunday at the Stone Pony 3 @ the Local Taphouse, St Kilda

When you're throwing a party that recreates -- literally -- a massive piece of your younger years, it's natural to have a moment that forces you to reckon with changes wrought. I had that moment about halfway through our most recent 'Sunday at the Stone Pony' when Southside Johnny's version of Sam Cooke's classic 'Havin' a Party' came on. I looked out at a crowd of people met mostly at the 2013 and 2014 Springsteen shows in Australia and New Zealand, many of them now good friends, and was reminded of the obvious: I remain a freak in this land.

To which that crowd of people, if they could hear my thoughts, would have reacted en masse with a hearty Aussie 'Ya reckon?'

Maybe the obsessive awareness, anticipation and enjoyment of what's playing overhead stems from growin' up in a place where personalised music was a norm long before Walkmans and iPods. Every decent tavern had a jukebox that could transform a room full of strangers into a cocoon where only you and songs that mattered to you existed, a musical nirvana reached through the slipping of front-pocket quarters into a slot.

Local Taphouse, downstairs, Sunday afternoon.

Hell, the nastiest dump could be sanctified by a decent jukebox (e.g., the Sex Pistols on the jukebox of a tear-down called Downtown Beirut on Second Avenue back when boots crunched needles along the sidewalks of the Lower East Side). Even roadside diners offered mini jukeboxes at each table that delivered AM radio-quality sound to distract you from caloric H-bombs like French toast or Spanish omelette or, more provincially, Taylor ham on a hard roll.

Australia isn't a jukebox country. Maybe the States isn't anymore, either. But I was always a jukebox junkie and remain a guy whose night can be made by a single goddamned song. (Cue Bowie, 'ain't no one damn song that can make me ...'). It's no secret assembling the setlist of each SP3 is a labour of love and I can even truthfully write that I'm writing this version of this post (there have been many) with Sunday's much-revised setlist playing in my freezing-fucking-cold living room (Southside into Steven into Gary US Bonds into Jake into Tom Morello into Bruce circa '88 into Bruce circa '84 into Bruce circa '75 into Marah into Patti Smith .... aren't I a self-referential douche?)

And so there I stood beside the downstairs bar of the Local Taphouse on Sunday, the simple chorus of 'Havin' a Party' churning a tide of NJ memories: 'We're havin' a party / Everybody's swingin' / Dancin' to the music / On the radio'. A chorus to be shouted at the ceiling with arms draped on friends old and new. I looked at the crowd of good people who'd stepped out on the wettest July day in 25 years to attend our soiree. Watched for a reaction I knew wouldn't come. Realised for the hundredth time since moving here in 2006 that the songs we carry in our hearts, the ones that detonate throughout our circulatory system, are as connected to the place(s) we grew up as the food we like and the way we talk. Doesn't make anyone's preferences better or worse. Just makes 'em different.

Piera and Mary.

I'm not ashamed to admit I enjoyed a little party in a party listening to 'Havin' a Party'. Maybe by 'Sunday at the Stone Pony 38' I'll have others singing it along with me, at obnoxious volume and with beers raised high.

Considering Melbourne meteorologists were apoplectic for days about a looming Antarctic vortex I was heartened by the number of souls who'd gone to the trouble of opening an umbrella and slipping on an overcoat (Melburnians whinging about winter is worse than a runway model agonising over a zit) and splashing into the warm and Stone Pony-festooned Local. I'm still collecting the money we raised for Aspergers Victoria but can proudly boast we broke the $1000 mark for the first time. All props, as always, to my co-organisers Mary Chiodo Jennings and Piera Alessio, aka 'Teachers for Tom Morello'. Nothing happens without them. Nothing.

Unsurprisingly, the six-hour affair was highlighted by a performance from Dave Wright and Rob Barber of Dave Wright and the Midnight Electric. Their live set was a 'Sunday at the Stone Pony' first, and hopefully not the last. I've written several reviews of DWME shows -- here, here, here, here and here -- but Dave and Rob alone demonstrated the strengths of ble talent  for hour-long set was a first for A review of their set (with additional) photos will follow.

Long-distance travelers Carly, Richard & Eden.

I'm still getting my head around the fact that three attendees flew into Melbourne solely for our event -- Carly from Sydney and Eden (along with new beau Richard) from Auckland -- plus a hardcore Springsteen fan named Greg who drove over 1000kms roundtrip to hear the songs listed at the bottom of this post, sip the best assortment of craft beers in Melbourne by a warm fireplace, and raise money for a great cause.

We will build a 'Sunday at the Stone Pony' Hall of Fame someday. And the four of them will be first-ballot inductees.

The following photos were taken by Piera, Aradhna and I, so some of these people are completely unknown to me. I apologise for this -- please identify these wonderful people in the comments section below.

Once again, thanks to all who came.

Julie and her husband Francois. Julie rehabilitates orphaned kangaroo joeys and other animals in her Heidelberg home. Last October's 'Sunday at the Stone Pony 2' raised a few dollars for her organisation Joey and Bat Sancturary (JABS) but not nearly enough. Please contribute to JABS if you can. Her and her family's dedication to wildlife is unmatched. 

Michael and his wife Robyn flanked by Rosie and Paul Dore (thanks for schooling me, Michael). 

Sophie and Iain. 

Kathleen and Vickie. 

Long-haul driver Greg, Cathy and her husband Stephen.

Lovely folks -- and a BABY! -- but their identities are a mystery to me.  

Siobhan and some chick.

On the left are Rob's partner Michelle and Daryl Johnson, keyboardist of Dave Wright & the Midnight Electric. That's Geoff in the middle, walking from our silent auction tables.

Bar crowd. 

Stewart, Eden and Rita.

Victor, Rebecca, Rita and Aggie. 

Hil and Alex.

Dave and Rob.

Rita and her daughter Rebecca share a moment between Greg and Rita's sister Aggie.

Sara's daughter Maja (that's them top left) was by far the most popular attendee. 

I'm a lucky mug. 

SETLIST
1. Coming Back / Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes / Better Days
2. Until The Good Is Gone / Little Steven & The Disciples Of Soul / Men Without Women
3. Daddy's Come Home / Gary U.S. Bonds / Dedication
4. All I Need / Jake Clemons / It's On EP
5. Save The Hammer For The Man / The Nightwatchman w/Ben Harper / World Wide Rebel Songs
6. Born to Run (acoustic) (live) / BS & the ESB / LA_April 23 88
7. Used Cars (live) / BS & the ESB / E Rutherford_Aug 5 84
8. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out (live) / BS & the ESB / Tower Theater_Dec 31 75
9. Point Breeze / Marah / Kids In Philly
10. Dancing Barefoot / Patti Smith Group / Wave
11. Two Faces (live) / BS & the ESB / LA_April 23 88
12. Fever (live) / BS & the ESB / Winterland_Dec 15 78
13. Soul Deep / Gary U.S. Bonds / On The Line
14. Take It Inside / Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes / Hearts Of Stone
15. The River (live) / BS & the ESB / Nassau Coliseum_Dec 31 80
16. Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street? (live) / BS & the ESB / Tower Theater_Dec 31 75
17. Justice / Little Steven / Voice Of America
18. Hold On (To What You Got) / Gary U.S. Bonds / On The Line
19. Just Like Fire Would (live) / BS & the ESB / Melbourne Feb 15 14
20. The Ghost Of Tom Joad (live) / BS & the ESB / Sydney_Feb 19 14
21. Disorder in the House / Warren Zevon / The Wind
22. You Mean So Much To Me / Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes w/Ronnie Spector / I Don't Want To Go Home
23. Darkness on the Edge of Town (live) / BS & the ESB / Capitol_Passaic_Sept 18 78
24. Sherry Darling (live) / BS & the ESB / E Rutherford_Aug 5 84
25. Paradise By the C (live) / Clarence Clemons / Live In Asbury Park
26. You Must Be Crazy / Jake Clemons / Embracing Light EP
27. Brilliant Disguise (live) / BS & the ESB / LA_April 23 88
28. Prove It All Night (live) 11:49 Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Agora_Cleveland_Aug 9 78
29. Jolé Blon / Gary U.S. Bonds / Dedication
30. Inside Of Me / Little Steven & The Disciples Of Soul / Men Without Women
31. Kitty's Back (live) / BS & the ESB / Capitol_Passaic_Sept 18 78
32. The '59 Sound / The Gaslight Anthem / The '59 Sound
33. I Played The Fool / Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes / Hearts Of Stone
34. Jersey Girl (live) / BS & the ESB / E Rutherford_Aug 5 84
35. Detroit Medley (live) / BS & the ESB / Winterland_Dec 15 78
36. Song for Hope / Jake Clemons / Embracing Light EP
37. You're a Friend of Mine (live) / Clarence Clemons / Live In Asbury Park Vol 2
38. The Rising (live) / BS & the ESB / Auckland_March 1 14
39. Backstreets (live) / BS & the ESB / Tower Theater_Dec 31 75
40. Havin' a Party / Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes / The Best of ...
41. On the Dark Side / John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band / Eddie & the Cruisers soundtrack
42. Who'll Stop The Rain? (live) / BS & the ESB / Nassau Coliseum_Dec 31 80
43. Adam Raised a Cain (live) / BS & the ESB / LA_April 23 88
44. This Little Girl / Gary U.S. Bonds / Dedication
45. I Don't Want To Go Home / Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes / I Don't Want To Go Home
46. The E Street Shuffle (live) / BS & the ESB / Brisbane_Feb 26 14
47. Thunder Road (live) / BS & the ESB / E Rutherford_Aug 5 84
48. Glory Days (live) / BS & the ESB / LA_April 23 88

Dave Wright & Rob Barber
1. Lucky Country
2. Radio Nowhere (Springsteen cover)
3. Sweet Caroline
4. Blacktown
5. The River  (Springsteen cover)
6. Life in a Northern Town
7. Man of the House
8. Streets of This Town
9. Atlantic City (Springsteen cover)
10. Hang Me High
11. Drinking Days
12. Happiness
13. I'm on Fire (Springsteen cover) / Take Me Out

49. Born in the U.S.A. (live) / BS & the ESB / LA_April 23 88
50. Two Hearts (live) / BS & the ESB / Nassau Coliseum_Dec 31 80
51. Jungleland (live) / BS & the ESB / E Rutherford_Aug 5 84
52. Dancing in the Dark (live) / BS & the ESB / E Rutherford_Aug 5 84
53. Born to Run (live) / BS & the ESB / E Rutherford_Aug 5 84
54. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (live) / BS & the ESB / Auckland_March 1 14
55. Quarter To Three (live) / BS & the ESB / Tower Theater_Dec 31 75
56. Adam Raised a Cain (live) / BS & the ESB / LA_April 23 88 (played again for Maja)
57. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out (live) / BS & the ESB / Tower Theater_Dec 31 75 (played again at suggestion of Stewart)