>From today's Wall of Sound: Last December, Bruce Springsteen
’s management released a statement confirming the singer would mount a 1999world tour with his longtime backup group the E Street Band, the first such tour between the Boss and the boys since 1988. The short note said more details of the tour would be announced in the new year. Though it’s nearly March, not a single date has been announced for what was widely assumed to be a spring-summer tour. But tonight could mark the beginning of a flurry of activity surrounding the reunion, as Springsteen makes a guest appearance on Late Night With Conan O’Brien to celebrate drummer Max Weinberg’s last show with his new boss before rejoining his old Boss for the E Street reunion. Springsteen performed his song “Working on the Highway” with the Max Weinberg 7, the Late Night house band, several members of which have played with Bruce in the past. As for the E Streeters’ 1999 world tour, rehearsals started a few weeks ago, and the first dates are now rumored to be set for early April in Spain. The tour would then wind through indoor and outdoor venues in Europe before wrapping up in the U.K. in late May. A summer tour of U.S., including a long residency in New Jersey, would follow in June, July, and August. To coincide with the start of the tour, Columbia plans to release a single-CD compilation drawn from the recently released four-CD box set Tracks on April 13. The big news for fans is that 18 Tracks will add three songs left off of Tracks, among them two songs which generated considerable comment over their original omission: “The Fever” and “The Promise.” The former is a nearly eight-minute soulful ballad recorded May 16, 1973, and performed in concert as late as 1978. The studio recording of the song was even sent to a few radio stations in the mid-‘70s that were early supporters of Springsteen. Southside Johnny eventually cut a version of his friend’s song for his 1976 debut, I Don’t Want To Go Home. The inclusion of “The Promise” is sure to both please and surprise devoted fans. When asked in recent interviews why the song didn’t appear on Tracks, Springsteen said that he would have put it on had he found what he felt was a satisfactory take. To that end, Springsteen re-recorded a new version of “The Promise” earlier this month (February 12 to be exact) for inclusion on 18 Tracks. The third “new” song is “Trouble River,” an outtake from Human Touch recorded April 6, 1990 that has popped up on a few bootlegs
