The 11 o'clock hour scrum for late night viewers intensified with the recent return to television of Conan O'Brien, so you gotta figure Leno, Letterman and Conan would all love to have landed Bruce Springsteen as a guest the week his long anticipated expanded reissue of Darkness On The Edge Of Town hit. With E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg out as the house band leader on the O'Brien show Conan probably had no shot at booking Bruce even if he tried. Reluctance by the other hosts to devote their entire time slots to Springsteen might have cost them the chance to land The Boss.  Whatever the case, upstart Jimmy Fallon got him, and Bruce seemed more than willing to go along with whatever Fallon wanted, even joining the host during his Neil Young impersonation of Neil Young doing the Willow Smith hit Whip My Hair.  Bruce, backed by the Roots, did versions of Because The Night and Save My Love.  Springsteen seldom seems comfortable in interview segments, but pairing him with Fallon, who often seems more intimidated by the process than his interview subjects, made Bruce more comfortable and not needing to condense everything into the typical 12 minute guest slot also allowed them to invite Steve Van Zandt to join them.

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