This month's Nugs archival-series release: a show from the FIRST "Land of Hope and Dreams" tour
- Letters To You
- May 9
- 2 min read
May 9, 2025
As Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band prepare for next week's launch of their 2025 European tour - dubbed just this week to now be known as "The Land of Hope and Dreams Tour" - this month's archival Nugs live-recording release takes us back a quarter-century ago, to the tour on which Springsteen fans all over the world first got to hear the still-so-relevant masterpiece that is "Land of Hope and Dreams."
Coming to us today as another "Second Friday" release (probably so as not to overshadow last week's drop of "Faithless" from Tracks II,) Oakland Arena, Oakland, CA, October 28, 1999 presents the final night of The Reunion Tour's three Oakland shows. Highlights include Reunion Tour rarity "Independence Day" (arguably in its best Reunion Tour version,) the only E Street Band performance to date of "Sinaloa Cowboys," a Southside Johnny guest-vocal on "Hungry Heart," and a seemingly impromptu performance of another Reunion Tour rarity, "Blinded By The Light," to close the show. All of these highlights are accompanied by solidly performed versions of the nightly Reunion Tour "regulars" like "Two Hearts," "Atlantic City," "Mansion On The Hill," "Youngstown," "Murder Incorporated," "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," "Light of Day," and of course "Land of Hope and Dreams." Toby Scott and Ross Petersen's multi-track professional recording gets the standard stellar mixing by the Nugs mixing team, with Jon Altschiller and Danielle Warman once more sitting prominently at the board.
