Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul were nearly done with their set at London’s Roundhouse in November of 2017 when Van Zandt told the crowd that a special guest was going to join them on the stage. “I got a friend of mine that wants to come out,” he said. “We need to finish some unfinished business. Say hello to Mr. Paul McCartney.”
The “unfinished business” was a complete performance of “I Saw Her Standing There,” which the two tried to play together at a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band gig in Hyde Park in 2012 before the town pulled the plug midway through because they went past curfew. This time around, they made it through the entire thing, and you can see the performance right here. “[It was] one of the most thrilling moments of my life,” Van Zandt said in a statement. “It was an incredibly generous endorsement of my own work and just the encouragement my new artistic rebirth needed.”
The amazing performance is just one tiny element of Van Zandt’s new Soulfire Live! box set, drawn from 2017 stops on his ongoing comeback tour with the Disciples of Soul. The release is available in both seven-LP and two-disc Blu-ray editions. Among the many highlights are Bruce Springsteen guest appearances on “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and “I Don’t Want to Go Home,” Peter Wolf joining the band for “Freeze Frame,” Richie Sambora coming out for “Can I Get a Witness” and Moby Grape’s Jerry Milling sitting in on “Can’t Be So Bad.”
There’s also a lunchtime set at the Cavern Club in Liverpool where the group played a special set packed with Beatles covers. “We decided to do a mini-tribute to the Beatles and do a lunchtime set at the Cavern the way they used to,” Van Zandt said in a statement. “Playing in the same venue where the Beatles started their careers was a childhood dream of mine come true. This was a band that set me on course for a life of music. For my rock ‘n’ roll religion, the Cavern is the first sacred site. It was an honor — no, make that an epiphany — to perform there.”
Go here for more info on the set. The Disciples’ tour resumes this May in the U.K.