Springsteen Breaks Out “My Generation,” “I Wanna Be Sedated,” More

The E Street Band pays homage to some rock and roll chestnuts.

The current Bruce Springsteen tour, while only a month-a-half-old, is firing on all cylinders, as evident by the amount of impromptu cover songs the Boss is whipping out, often at the suggestion of signs held up by the audience.

Among the songs to get the E Street Band treatment this time out: the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated,” the Who’s “My Generation,” the Rascals’ “Good Lovin’,” the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie,” the Soul Survivors’ “Expressway to Your Heart,” Willie Dixon’s “Seventh Son,” and ? and the Mysterians’ “96 Tears.”

“There’s just not bar bands of this caliber, with a leader like we have,” guitarist Nils Lofgren tells Billboard. “But, yeah, we all learned how to play in cover bands and cut our teeth on an incredible wealth of catalogs like Motown, Stax Volt, the British Invasion, blues…We’re a hard group to stump.”

So how does Bruce remember all those lyrics? The tour’s teleprompter crew grabs them off the Internet. We wonder which site they use. Lyricsfreaks.com?

The North American portion of the tour ends May 23 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Check out video of the band tearing up “My Generation” at Penn State at Brucespringsteen.net.