Concert for Human Rights Now, Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 10-15-1988, Part 5 - Bruce Springsteen

This album continues right where the previous one left off. That's because these are different sets from a benefit concert that was five and a half hours long. The first sets featured Youssou N'Dour, Tracy Chapman, Peter Gabriel and Sting. This is Bruce Springsteen's closing set.

I explained the basics about this concert in Part 1, the Youssou N'Dour set. Read that if you want to know more, including a Wikipedia link about the tour. But the gist is that these artists got together for a short world tour to promote the work of the non-profit Amnesty International and its campaigns against human rights abuses.

Unlike some of the other artists in this concert, Springsteen hadn't yet gotten overtly political with his songs, though he would later, for instance with his 1995 album "The Ghost of Tom Joad." But he had done some political benefits before, such as the "No Nukes" concerts in 1979, and a frequent theme in his songs has been the problems of the common man. 

He also was the only one to release music to support this tour at the time. He put out the "Chimes of Freedom" EP in August 1988, which contained four songs recorded during a different tour earlier in the year. But it helped draw attention to the tour, especially the Bob Dylan cover "Chimes of Freedom," which he hadn't recorded before.

One interesting thing about this concert is that there doesn't seem to have been an emcee. Instead, each artist was introduced by the previous one. So the first track here is the introduction by Sting.

The last two songs might not be considered part of Springsteen's set. Since this was the last set of the entire concert, all five of the headlining artists - Springsteen, N'Dour, Chapman, Gabriel, and Sting - joined together on stage to sing two encore songs. But I've included them here since they came right after his set.

In 1987, Springsteen released the album "Tunnel of Love," which was well received. But, oddly, he didn't play any songs from it during this set. Instead, he leaned particularly heavily on his 1984 smash album "Born in the U.S.A." Also, I'd like to note that he made some valiant attempts to speak Spanish for the Argentine audience, but he didn't seem as fluent as some others. I was particularly amused how he introduced Sting as "El Stingo" when Sting joined in singing the song "The River."

As I mentioned in my Part 1 write-up, there has been an official album of this concert, but it's only a double album, so it merely contains highlights from the full show, which is over five and a half hours long. Luckily, a soundboard bootleg of the entire thing exists, and the sound quality here is excellent.

This album is an hour and 25 minutes long. Since I consider it a part of the entire concert, I've had the track number start with 46, so you can put all the parts together in one folder and have them be in the proper order.

46 talk by Sting (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
47 Born in the U.S.A. (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
48 The Promised Land (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
49 Cover Me (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
50 I'm on Fire (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
51 talk (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
52 The River (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band with Sting)
53 Cadillac Ranch (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
54 War (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
55 Monologue (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
56 My Home Town (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
57 Dancing in the Dark (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
58 Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
59 Raise Your Hand (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
60 Twist and Shout (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
61 Chimes of Freedom (Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, Youssou N'Dour & Sting)
62 Get Up, Stand Up (Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, Youssou N'Dour & Sting)

NOTE: The download link has been removed due to a copyright issue. However, check out the comments below.

The cover photo is from this exact concert. I could have used a photo of just Springsteen, but I thought it was more interesting to use one of Tracy Chapman, Sting, and Springsteen from one of the encore songs. The graphic in the upper left corner was the logo for this tour. I also used the same font that was featured on the promotional material for the tour.