An Ongoing Guide to Springsteen's Archive Series

I think you may be right, and hopefully my heart can handle all of those games hahaha. The last four have taken years off my life! One of the best things about Joe is that his style exudes cockiness, but he's really just a humble lad who loves playing football. He's confident, because he's damn good and he knows that, but compared to the way someone like Zach Wilson acts, it's night and day. As for Mahomes, my problem isn't with him because he is very very talented, but I hate the way the media - looking at you Romo! - go on about him as if he's God's gift, and I can't stand his insufferable wife and brother. He seems to be more grounded than them, but there's something there that bothers me. And yeah, my enjoyment for this game has overtaken how much I love English football haha. Never thought I'd ever look so forward to September when I was little!

Agree about both .....Burrow is more just extremely confident. I get a kick out of him as well as seeing him connect with the receiver he won the championship at LSU ...Thats so cool ....

And my boss at work who is a HUGE football fan said all most exactly what you said about Mahomes ..... Too much adulation .....Has anyone heard from Josh Allen BTW lol ?

"Ja'Marr's down there somewhere!" 😁 Yeah can't really talk about Joe without mentioning Uno! Gotta say I also soured on Mahomes somewhat during this year's playoff games and those 'ankle injuries' of his. Maybe I'm a conspiracy theoriest, maybe I'm just bitter, but there was something funny about that in those three games. Almost is if he was putting it on so he either had an excuse if he lost, or an even better argument for being great in victory... And Josh Allen, haven't heard from him since that great day the Bengals ruined the NFL's hopes for a Bills/Chiefs AFC Championship game hahaha. I won't say a bad word about Josh, though, he's of the sake mould as Joey: an excellent QB who is also so down to Earth.

I always found Louisville to be sort of a hidden gem on that first leg, I really enjoy the post-River part of the show. Born In The U.S.A. is powerful there

@1651997 Oh yeah, I'm loving replaying these shows and re-discovering the ones I 'passed over' in favour of, well, those in the Best of guide. Some really enjoyable shows here.

As always, a great read.

Since you'll be doing every night of the tour, does that mean I can look forward to another instance of preantepenultimate?

@Jerseyfornia I don't see why not!

I have that Vets Box set and the Ev2 upgrade but oh to have an archive release of this show. Thanks for your review. If there was just one concert I could pick it'd be this one.

@Mario Brega Thanks - it’s a terrific show!

Nice one.

Well done mate. Great job on your reviews of this tour.

@SteveInJoburg Thanks mate, your help with the South African shows was massive when I was getting started.

@Early North Jersey If you ever find fault/want to disagree with something I've written please feel free mate. I really appreciate that you guys on here and a few others elsewhere seem to enjoy my reviews, but I'm not safe from imperfect writing, making mistakes, and outright bad takes, so a little bit of criticism can go a long way 😉

And as for waiting for a Buffalo 1980 Archive review, you and me both!

@Mario Brega You know i have my opinions lol .... But they are never mean spirited ...Any artist that can make two albums like The River and TGOTJ is going to draw a fanbase with divergent tastes !!!

@Mario Brega Can I mention I still disagree with the 10/10 score for the last night MSG 2000?

Yes, the highlighting of the word 'only' is intriguing there.

@Mario Brega I think we're all still here, but maybe hibernating a bit...🙄

I still love Bruce. ❤️

@Louisa Wouldn't surprise me if we're all just waiting for something big to talk about, hahaha, rather than just talking about pointless crap like on other Springsteen forums.

I check in here every day, but I'll be honest in saying I'm more focused on writing these blog reviews than I am posting constantly on the forums. I set some personal deadlines for myself back in March and I really want to hit them.

I never heard about the ambivalence toward this show before. I haven't played any High Hopes shows for a while, but I used to enjoy this one when they were current and I was playing them a lot.

@Jerseyfornia It might just be BTX ambivalence (I know, I know), but I remember seeing a thread on there a year or so ago "what is the worst Bruce show you've attended" (again, I know) and Raleigh was mentioned more than a few times. Even a lad on Greasy Lake said he was interested to see how I tackled this one last week.

I'm sure if people were keeping track of the surprises in the shows leading up to it at the time, they might have been upset had they been there, but in just listening to the audio there's nothing massively wrong with this.

Oh, and thanks for reading 🙂

Great read, as always. That Virginia Beach show was one of my favourites from the High Hopes tour, it was so much fun! I haven't listened to it in a loong time. Gotta take care of that!

@1651997 Thanks mate. I still have my doubts about making it a 'rest of the tour' tier show rather than a 'best', but to label this as the former highlights just how good the best shows really were.

@Jerseyfornia Credit has to go to @lilbud, he's helped me out a few times during these tour write-ups and for other reviews from over the years too.

@Mario Brega Thanks, @lilbud .

Also, I enjoy Jump. It's a misguided train wreck of a performance, but there's bad and sometimes there's gloriously bad.

@Jerseyfornia I wonder how "Jump" would have been received if they first played it in 2012 or 2013 (or even earlier) instead? They'd raised such a high bar by April '14 with the other covers from South Africa and Oceania, so anything subpar in comparison was probably going to be received as 10x worse than it might have actually been. "Jump" might actually not be a 'misguided train wreck', and we only feel that way because "Stayin' Alive" was ESSENCE. Maybe?