My son has showed me the DITD video and asked me if I knew who Courtney was. I suddenly realized he doesn't have a clue about how much I know about Bruce.
When I die, please someone, somehow, find my oldest son and tell him about Silvia/Louisa. His name is Leon.
Slow to things as always, I only just listened to the Bruce episode of Rick Rubin's Broken Record podcast.
Really interesting for anyone like me who overlooked it before.
I know time has passed, as this was done soon after LTY was actually released, but the interesting thing for me was Bruce's emphasis on Last Man Standing as the song that came first and initiated all the other new songs on the album. And also the fact he states House Of A Thousand Guitars is his favourite song on the LTY album. Which I think is borne out by how often he has played that (albeit acoustically) whenever circumstances have allowed since (crucially, as recently as Light Of Day in recent days).
I personally don't think distance from this material will lessen the chances of Bruce playing it next year, given the band has never done it live. I see Ghosts as a natural opener, both thematically and in musical terms... the drums opening, dropping out for Bruce to sing "I hear the sound of your guitar.." before the band explodes into it. Hell, it sounds like it was actually arranged to start a show, all the way up to where towards the end the music drops out which Bruce could use for his "Hello, (insert location). We are so glad to be in your beautiful city tonight". A few more words before he starts singing again... "I shoulder your Les Paul...". Seriously, listen to it again, it's what the song is built for.
I Can See You In My Dreams is the closer... either as a less boisterous full band benediction at the end of the show the way LOHAD was used in 1999/2000, or maybe a Bruce only acoustic piece like he finished many shows in 2013/2014 with stuff like Thunder, This Hard Land etc. Again, made for it.
After hearing the podcast, I'm locking in House Of A Guitars as a nightly too. Infact, it may be a more subdued centrepiece of the entire set the way Tenth and Marys Place were. An extended Roy intro, a bigger outro with the added backing singer's. Or a main set closer, the way Into The Fire was in 2002.
And Last Man Standing is now in play as a regular for me also. Imagine Last Man Standing going straight into Glory Days as a thematic sequence. And make Where The Bands Are a regular, too, to tie it up in a nice bow.
Something like this for the first third or so of the show...
Ghosts
Badlands
Ties That Bind
No Surrender
Darkness On The Edge...
Western Stars
Last Man Standing
Glory Days
Where The Bands Are
House Of... or, maybe, Nightshift at this point...