Vince Bucci/Getty ImagesE Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons died in 2011, but the last time he performed with Bruce Springsteen was in December of 2010, in Asbury Park, NJ, the city where they first met 40 years prior. You can now watch that performance online.
Recently posted to Bruce’s official YouTube channel, the performance is a rendition of the seasonal favorite “Blue Christmas,” which Bruce played at the end of a special concert at Asbury Park’s Carousel House on December 7, 2010. As Rolling Stone notes, the concert took place in front of 60 fans and consisted almost entirely of songs that didn’t make Bruce’s album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, but which later appeared on the box set The Promise.
The performance featured Bruce and the E Street Band joined by a horn section and guitarist David Lindley, and the whole thing was filmed by longtime Bruce collaborator Thom Zimny. The final song was “Blue Christmas,” and Bruce invited everyone onstage for the performance.
As Rolling Stone notes, the concert took place a few blocks away from the former location of a club called the Student Prince, where Bruce and Clarence famously met for the first time.
The Big Man’s final performance before his death on June 18, 2011 came in May of that year, when he performed “Edge of Glory” with Lady Gaga on the American Idol finale. Gaga, a huge Bruce fan, had tapped Clarence to play on several tracks on her album, Born This Way.
