Bruce Springsteen performed at the Stand Up For Heroes : Guitar fetches $160K

Published: Thursday, November 10, 2011, 1:49 AM Updated: Thursday, November 10, 2011, 2:59 AM
By Stan Goldstein

Bruce Springsteen played four songs at Wednesday night’s Stand Up for Heroes benefit at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, but the big news of the evening was Bruce’s guitar being auctioned off for a whopping $160,000 at the end of the show to benefit the Bob Woodruff Foundation.

Photo by Stan Goldstein
Bruce Springsteen performed at the Stand Up For Heroes benefit on Wednesday night at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.
Bruce took the stage at 10:10 p.m. after being introduced by Jon Stewart as “If James Brown and Bob Dylan had a baby.”
Bruce began by telling a joke since the show was a New York Comedy Festival event. He messed up the semi-dirty joke and then did what he does best, perform.
Backed by the evening’s house band, The Max Weinberg Big Band, Springsteen opened with the Seeger Sessions arrangement of “Open All Night” with Joe Delia on piano.
This was a rousing version backed by the 12-piece horn section. This song had Springsteen fans up and dancing during the Seeger Sessions Tour in 2006 but the crowd at the Beacon was not the ususal Springsteen show crowd and very few people were up and dancing.
Bruce then told another dirty joke about a golfer which I can’t repeat here. It was pretty funny.
Up next was a great version of “Spirit In the Night” which featured saxophonist Mindi Abair of the latest version of the Max Weinberg 7.
Bruce jumped up on the speakers and then went into the crowd two different times, going back about 10 rows.
Bruce dedicated his third song “to all the men and women in uniform here tonight.”
It was an acoustic “Land of Hope and Dreams” which really resonated with the audience. He did this in Pittsburgh last Thursday also. Just Bruce with an acoustic guitar and harmonia and it was beautifully done.
Brian Williams of NBC News and Seth Meyers of “Saturday Night Live” then came out with an auctioneer from Sotheby’s to auction off Springsteen’s acoustic guitar.
This was done at last year’s show and that guitar went for $140,000.
Last night, bidding started at $50,000 and quickly soared to more than $100,000. As the bidding got higher, Bruce threw in the harmonica he had just played. When bidding reach $150,000, Bruce took off his shirt and added that too. He was wearing a black undershirt underneath.
The bidding closed at $160,000 and was won by an audience member sitting down toward the front.
It was then announced that the winning bidder was giving the guitar to one of the servicemen at the show.
While trying to get the guitar to the veteran (who was on the other side of the audience) Bruce took another guitar and did a short version of Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally” which I thought when he started he was going to play “Open All Night” again.
Bruce then gave the guitar won in the auction to the serviceman and said, as he came back on stage “I got my exercise tonight.”
President Bill Clinton was a surprise guest, speaking to the audience earlier in the eveing for about five minutes talking about “the importance of laughter.”
Max Weinberg’s Big Band opened the show performing three songs and a group called 4 Troops sang the national anthem and one other song.
Three comedians, Ricky Gervais (not that good), Jim Gaffigan (pretty good) and Stewart (great, very funny) were on before Springsteen.
Among the celeberties spotted in the audience were Katie Couric and Geraldo Rivera. Servicemen and women in uniform were seated in the first four rows of the theater.
This was the fifth year of the Stand Up for Heroes show and Springsteen has played at all five of the shows.
The Bob Woodruff Foundation is committed to helping heal the physical and psychological wounds of war. They provide resources and financial support to national and local organizations and programs that work to help injured service members and their families reintergrate and thrive again — physicall, psychologically, socially and economically.
Bruce’s set list:
1. Open All Night (with Max Weinberg’s Big Band and Joe Delia on piano)
2. Spirit In the Night (with Max Weinberg’s Big Band and Mindi Abair on saxophone.
3. Land of Hope and Dreams (solo acoustic)
4. Long Tall Sally (with Max Weinberg’s Big Band).