This was the last show of the “Ghost of Tom Joad Tour”.
The Ghost of Tom Joad Tour was a lengthy, worldwide concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen performing alone on stage in small halls and theatres, that ran off and on from late 1995 through the middle of 1997. It followed the release of his 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad.The tour began on November 21, 1995 at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The first group of shows ran through the end of the year in major media centers such as Los Angeles, the San Francisco area, Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.
After a winter holiday break, the show visited other North American cities in January 1996, including a stop in Youngstown, Ohio due to “Youngstown” being the album track most (relatively) played on radio.
February and March saw shows in Western Europe, followed by a three-week break during which Springsteen attended the Academy Awards show in Los Angeles. The tour resumed in Europe through earlyish May.
A family man with three small children at the time, Springsteen took off the summer of 1996 and then started up again in the U.S. in mid-September, now playing smaller markets and colleges, as well as local stops in Asbury Park and his old St. Rose of Lima School in Freehold, and finishing up in mid-December.
Another winter holiday break was taken, then in late January 1997 Springsteen took the show for three weeks in Japan and Australia. In May the final leg started up; first Springsteen went to Stockholm to accept the Polar Music Prize, then he toured Central Europe for perhaps the first time, seeing Austria, Poland, and the Czech Republic, before concluding with additional shows back in Western Europe. The 128th and final show of the tour was on May 26, 1997 at the Palais des Congrès in Paris and was attended by hundreds of fans from around the world.
Audience tape and video feed. The audio portion of the video feed is released on CD ‘Roses And Broken Hearts‘ (Great Dane Records) and re-released on the Gamble Records label. This recording is clear, but somewhat flat. An audience recording (from Mark Persic’s master tapes) also circulates as ‘The Longest Date‘ (Ev2) and is superior to the line feed in many respects. Longest and one of the best of the Tunnel Of Love Express Tour shows. ~Brucebase (brucebase.wikispaces.com/1988)
Robert Ellis has an incredible voice, he’s a very good songwriter and a fine interpreter of other people’s songs. He is a Texas singer-songwriter with country leanings and has recently released his third album,The Lights From the Chemical Plant. It is the best album released in 2014, so far.
“Robert Ellis began performing as “Robert Ellis & The Boys” early in 2010, forming a foundation in the classics of country music and gradually incorporating original songs. The self-released LP, The Great Rearranger was sold at shows, but Ellis found a higher level of success when American Songwriter’s Magazine named his second album Photographs as one of the top 50 albums of 2011. Robert Ellis is a New West recording artist. In 2012, Ellis relocated from Houston, Texas to Nashville, Tennessee”
– Wikipedia
The tour began on November 21, 1995 at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The first group of shows ran through the end of the year in major media centers such as Los Angeles, the San Francisco area, Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.
