Is it just us or does it seem like every nearly living legendary rock star is currently on tour? Just take a look at the recent schedule for Madison Square Garden: In a one-month period, Stevie Wonder, The Police, Bruce Springsteen and Van Halen will all have played the self-proclaimed World’s Most Famous Arena.

Prices for all of these shows are expensive as hell, but luckily you can “try before you buy” thanks to the tapers who have made downloads of recent shows by all of those artists easy to find. We want you to make an informed decision about spending your hard-earned paycheck, so we’ve devoted this edition of Grousing The Aisles to three Hall of Fame acts that have been tearing it up lately.

Bruce Springsteen 11/04/2007 DAUD [FLAC, MP3 ]:

Photo via Tinkerbell 4406

Most ignorant jamfans think that Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band play the same setlist every night, but that simply isn’t the case. On Sunday night in Cleveland, for example, Springsteen debuted two songs from his vast repertoire for the first time on his lengthy fall tour. The first well-played bustout was the Dylanesque rocker It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City off of Greetings In Asbury Park. Be True, a fast tempo River-era B-side, which also hadn’t been played on the tour, followed soon after to excite the crowd.

Obviously there are some songs Bruce plays every night, because everyone who attends one of his shows deserves to see Born To Run. The Boss is also playing the shit out of a number of tracks from his new album, including the poppy Radio Nowhere and the bittersweet Girls in Their Summer Clothes. Yet Springsteen did an incredible job mixing things up in Cleveland, playing at least one song from every E-Street album except for The River. You can find audience tapes from each show of this tour, but we recommend you check out this show from Cleveland for the varied setlist and crisp recording. Read on for seven more downloads…

Neil Young 10/30/2007 DAUD [FLAC, MP3 Pt. 1 Pt. 2]:

Neil Young brought his critically acclaimed fall tour to the brand-spanking-new Nokia Theatre in LA last week, where he played a heady mix of rarities, classics and new songs from Chrome Dreams II. Young split his show into two distinct halves, each showing a completely different side of his music. The first half of the show featured Neil switching from acoustic guitar to piano to banjo without any accompaniment. Young’s voice sounds fantastic during the underplayed gems Sad Movies, Star of Bethlehem and Love Art Blues. Old Man and After The Gold Rush, the two songs that got the biggest round of applause from the audience, have both aged gracefully thanks to their timeless lyrics and Young’s brilliant delivery.

The second half of the show featured Neil on electric guitar backed by a band that includes multi-instrumentalist Ben Keith, drummer Ralph Molina and bassist Rick Rosas. Winterlong and The Loner stood out alongside Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere as the highlights of his electric set. Young’s band rocked the classics with a fiery passion that wasn’t seen on his last few tours, with Ben Keith showing off his impressive skills throughout the electric segment. Neil knows how to please a crowd and sent everyone home happy with the awesome pairing of Cinnamon Girl and Tonight’s The Night. There aren’t many shows worthy of a $200 ticket price, but this may be one of them.

Van Halen 11/03/2007 DAUD [FLAC, MP3]:

Photo via Twisted Sisto

Who would have guessed Van Halen’s reunion tour would be such a major success? We all knew the tour would do well financially, but it blows me away that these guys have garned such favorable reviews from tough critics like Kot and DeRogatis. I’ve stayed away from listening to the shows, but they’ve been on the road for over a month now, so I figured I’d check out a recent show. Last night I found a great-sounding recording of Saturday night’s show from East Rutherford, and I was pretty fucking impressed at what I heard.

After 25 years of being estranged Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth seem to have finally put their issues behind them. They both gave inspired performances showing that they have indeed risen to this occasion. Eddie’s sizzling guitar work seemed to get better as the night moved along. Check out his ridiculous guitar solo after Panama for an example of why this guy should be at the top of any list of guitar shredders. Not to be outdone, David Lee Roth also gave an inspired performance hitting most of the extremely difficult to reach high notes that are signatures of Van Halen’s early sound. Roth’s voice especially sounded great on Everybody Wants Some and Runnin’ With The Devil.

My biggest problem with this tour was the exclusion of bass player Michael Anthony, but Wolfgang Van Halen showed some major talent throughout the night. The 16-year-old did a nice job of leading the band back and forth from Romeo’s Delight into a cover of The Who’s Magic Bus without missing a beat. Van Halen plays the same setlist night after night, which has helped the band become pretty damn tight. Even Jump sounded much better than it did at the start of the tour. We recently reported that the band has extended the tour into 2008, so be sure to check them out when they come to your neck of the woods.

Here are five other torrents that caught our eye this week:

• Brett Dennen @ High Sierra 07/06/2007 [FLAC]
• Ratdog w/ Mike Gordon @ Burlington Memorial Auditorium 11/02/2007 [FLAC]
• Bob Dylan and The Band @ Boston Garden 01/14/1974 [FLAC]
• Jeff Beck and Carlos Santana @ Nagano 6/1/1986 [DVD]
• Dire Straits: First Album Demos [FLAC]

Let us know what you’ve been listening to this week by with a comment…