The First Live Performance of Springsteen’s “Jungleland” After Clarence Clemons’ Death, with His Nephew Jake on Sax (July 28, 2012)

When you think “Jun­gle­land,” you think of Clarence Clemons and his icon­ic sax solo, which stretch­es on over two glo­ri­ous min­utes. It’s hard to imag­ine any­one else play­ing that solo. But, after Clarence’s death in 2011, the hon­ors went, fit­ting­ly, to his nephew Jake, who joined the E Street Band and per­formed “Jun­gle­land” live in Swe­den, on July 28, 2012. It was an emo­tion­al per­for­mance for all.

Speak­ing below, Jake Clemons remem­bers it as “an extreme­ly emo­tion­al moment. It felt like the most extreme emo­tion that I had ever expe­ri­enced…” He con­tin­ues: “Up to that show, all of the shows before then, I felt like I was fill­ing in for Clarence… That moment for me was a moment of like, he’s not com­ing back. Phys­i­cal­ly he would not be walk­ing on that stage again.”

Lat­er, he told Rolling Stone, the “moment was so sig­nif­i­cant that we couldn’t sound­check it. That moment was the first time that the band heard me play that song.” But, from there, it “became a huge part of the heal­ing process.” You can watch the poignant per­for­mance above, with the sax solo start­ing around the 5:10 mark.

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Relat­ed Con­tent 

Bruce Spring­steen Per­forms Mov­ing Acoustic Ver­sions of “Thun­der Road,” “The Ris­ing” & “Land of Hope & Dreams” on the Howard Stern Show

Bruce Spring­steen and the E Street Band Impro­vis­es and Plays, Com­plete­ly Unre­hearsed, Chuck Berry’s “You Nev­er Can Tell,” Live Onstage (2013)

Bruce Spring­steen Lists 20 of His Favorite Books: The Books That Have Inspired the Song­writer & Now Mem­oirist

Bruce Spring­steen Plays East Berlin in 1988: I’m Not Here For Any Gov­ern­ment. I’ve Come to Play Rock