springsteen tour 1978

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How Bruce Springsteen Sealed His Legacy on ‘Darkness’ Tour

Bruce Springsteen was looking to restart his career after nearly three years on the sidelines when the Darkness on the Edge of Town  tour kicked off on May 23, 1978, at Shea Hall in Buffalo, N.Y. By the time it ended seven months later, he had cemented his reputation as one of the most electrifying performers in rock.

The problems Springsteen encountered making Darkness on the Edge of Town  are well-known. The success of Born to Run in 1975 made him a star, but he soon learned that the contract he signed with manager Mike Appel put his lucrative publishing rights in Appel's hands. Springsteen sued to break the contract, and Appel counter-sued, getting an injunction barring Springsteen from entering a studio.

Unable to make the follow-up to Born to Run , Springsteen spent most of 1976 and 1977 on the road. The concerts furthered the E Street Band's reputation as one of the best live acts in the country, as well as further integrating drummer Max Weinberg, pianist Roy Bittan and guitarist Steven Van Zandt – all of whom joined the E Street Band in 1975 – into the band.

In May 1977, two months after the Lawsuit Tour ended, both parties finally came to an agreement, and Springsteen and the E Street Band began the marathon sessions recording Darkness on the Edge of Town . A year later, and 10 days before the album was released, Springsteen returned to the stage.

At the time, three years between releases was practically unheard of. Springsteen has often said that he was worried that the general public had forgotten about him in the interim. With punk and disco capturing the public’s imagination during his layoff, he had no idea how the new material would be received, and channeled that into his performance when he took the stage that night in Buffalo.

"What I remember most was the raw emotion that Bruce presented on stage," Lawrence Kirsch said about that opening night in The Light in Darkness , his 2009 collection of essays about the tour. "I would even say he was a bit tentative and nervous. But by the time he launched into 'Something in the Night' and screamed so his body shook, we knew that he was going to take no prisoners that night, even if it killed him, and us."

Concerts on the Darkness Tour, which usually ran between 2 hours and 45 minutes and three hours, were broken into two sets. The first often opened with a cover of an early rock song, such as Buddy Holly’s "Rave On" or Eddie Cochran’s "Summertime Blues." Springsteen then moved into "Badlands" and most of the other songs on Darkness , including an extended version of "Prove it All Night" that featured a searing introductory guitar solo. The set closed with "Jungleland," after which the band took a 15-20 minute break.

Springsteen usually began the second half with a few songs he hadn’t yet released, like "Fire," "Sherry Darling" or "Paradise by the ‘C’," a spotlight for saxophonist Clarence Clemons . From there, however, he took fans on a roller-coaster ride through his then-small catalog. "She’s the One" often began with a few verses of "Not Fade Away" or Bo Diddley’s "Mona." Then it was " Growin’ Up ," which featured Springsteen making up a story dealing with his own frustrations as a teenager with rock 'n' roll dreams before launching into the final verse.

Then it was on to " Backstreets ," which, as it had during the Lawsuit Tour, included a stream-of-consciousness break down before the coda that became known as "Sad Eyes." The section involved Springsteen describing a betrayal by a lover that could easily be interpreted as his anger towards Appel, which took the already-emotional song to new heights. The second set closed, as always, with "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)." "Born to Run," "Because the Night" and a cover of Eddie Floyd’s "Raise Your Hand" formed the bulk of the encores on most nights.

A handful of the dates on the Darkness tour – most notably Los Angeles (July 7), Cleveland (Aug. 9), Passaic, N.J. (Sept. 19) and San Francisco (Dec. 15) – were broadcast over radio, and the tapes from those shows remain among the most beloved Springsteen bootlegs.

In addition, the performance of " Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) " from the July 8 concert in Phoenix was filmed and broadcast the next year on an ABC television special called Heroes of Rock and Roll .

By the time the tour ended after more than 110 shows on Jan. 1, 1979 in Cleveland, Springsteen had graduated from theaters and ballrooms to arenas in his biggest markets. He would soon be filling stadiums worldwide on the heels of the success of Born in the U.S.A. , but the Darkness tour remains the favorite of many of his most devout fans.

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Darkness On The Edge Of Town Tour

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The tour has since become viewed as perhaps Springsteen's best in a storied career of concert performances. Biographer Dave Marsh wrote in 1987, "The screaming intensity of those '78 shows are part of rock and roll legend in the same way as Dylan's 1966 shows with the Band, the Rolling Stones' tours of 1969 and 1972, and the Who's  Tommy  tour of 1969: benchmarks of an era."

The tour ran in one continuous motion, starting May 23, 1978 at Shea's Buffalo in Buffalo, New York and playing halls, theatres, and occasional arenas across the United States and back several times, with a couple of forays into Canada. The first eight shows were played before the  Darkness  album was released on June 2. Big cities, secondary cities, and college towns were all visited. A few shows were cancelled due to sickness but were made up later in the run. The tour wrapped up, after 115 shows, on New Year's Day 1979 in Cleveland, Ohio's Richfield Coliseum.

After a brief, unpleasant 1975 touring experience in Europe after the release of  Born to Run , and with the weaker commercial appeal of  Darkness  compared to its predecessor, Springsteen did not venture overseas on this tour.

Broadcasts and recordings [ ]

One of the reasons the 1978 Tour is so well-remembered, and often viewed as the peak of Springsteen and the E Street Band in concert, is that several complete shows were broadcast live on album-oriented rock radio stations. These included the July 7 show at West Hollywood's The Roxy, broadcast on KMET; the August 9 show at Cleveland's Agora Ballroom, broadcast on WMMS and seven other Midwestern stations; the September 19 show at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey, broadcast on WNEW-FM; the September 30 show from the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, broadcast on about 20 Southeastern stations; and the December 15 show from the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, broadcast on KSAN-FM. These broadcasts were mixed by Jimmy Iovine and of high audio quality, and were listened to at the time by a larger audience than attended the concerts. Over the years the stations would play the broadcasts again, and many high-quality bootlegs were made and circulated of these shows.

A syndicated radio interview with New York disc jockey Dave Herman also included live excerpts from a July 1 Berkeley Community Theatre show, including the long "Prove It All Night"; these clips would also be heard on other radio promotional vehicles such as the  King Biscuit Flower Hour .

In addition, in the early 1980s a long music video for "Rosalita" was released to MTV, from the July 8 show on this tour (filmed in its entirety) at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Arizona, that included band introductions and numerous adoring women rushing the stage. It captured the energetic and playful side of Springsteen and the E Street Band in concert, and was the first such introduction many casual fans had. This was later included in the 1989 release  Video Anthology / 1978-88 .

The 1986  Live/1975-85  box set contained nine selections from the 1978 Tour, but fans were generally dissatisfied with them, as the "Backstreets" interlude was edited out, other raps and stories were edited or spliced together from different shows, and the long "Prove It All Night" was missing altogether. Additionally, a few of the tracks from the 1978 contained overdubs recorded at the Hit Factory during 1986.

In 2006, Springsteen manager Jon Landau indicated that a full-length filmed concert DVD from the Darkness Tour might be in the offing, following a similar release for a 1975 Born to Run tour show. Fans speculated heavily about such a possibility. It finally materialized in November 2010 with the release of  The Promise: The Making of "Darkness On the Edge of Town" , an elaborate box set that included a DVD containing a house recording of the full December 8, 1978, show from Houston's The Summit arena.

Several shows were released as part of the Bruce Springsteen Archives:

• The Agora, Cleveland 1978 , released December 23, 2014.
• The Summit, Houston, TX December 8, 1978 , released September 21, 2017.
• Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, September 20, 1978 , released December 22, 2017.
• The Roxy, July 7, 1978 , released July 6, 2018.
• Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, September 19, 1978 , released September 6, 2019.
• Winterland 12/15/78 , released December 20, 2019.
• Winterland 12/16/78 , released December 20, 2019.
• Fox Theatre 09/30/1978, released October 9, 2020.
• Berkeley,July 1, 1978, released June 18, 2021
• 1 Born In The U.S.A. Tour
• 2 Born In The U.S.A. (album)
• 3 E Street Band

Bruce Springsteen Releases Legendary 1978 Passaic, New Jersey Concert

By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

There’s no shortage of beloved Bruce Springsteen bootlegs out there in the fan community, but one of the most cherished ones was taped at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey on September 19th, 1978. It was a smoking hot night midway through the Darkness on the Edge of Town tour when the E Street Band was in absolute prime form, and a broadcast on WNEW-FM New York and nine other Northeast stations meant that it was pressed onto vinyl with weeks and sold nationwide at hole-in-the-wall record stores that didn’t care about pesky things like copyright law. (The most famous bootleg from the show was called Piece De Resistance , but there were many others.)

It’s taken 41 years, but Springsteen’s team has finally dug out the original multi-track tapes, remixed them and placed the show for sale to fans as part of Springsteen’s ongoing live archive series. This has always been one of the best-sounding Springsteen bootlegs, but this new version makes all prior versions obsolete.

This was actually the first show of a three-night stand at the Capitol Theatre. The previous month Springsteen headlined Madison Square Garden for the first time in his career, but this was an intimate theater and tour standards like like “Thunder Road,” “Racing In the Street” and “Because The Night” never sounded better. Last year, the September 20th show at the Capitol Theatre was also officially released, but most fans feel the now-released September 19th performance is the superior night. It’s also high on the list of the greatest Springsteen shows of all time, with many fans placing it at the top.

Springsteen’s team has been selling fans official concert downloads for the past five years and over that time they’ve touched on most eras of his career with the very notable exception of anything prior to 1975; the main issue there appears to be the absence of quality tapes from that period. New shows are released the first Friday of every month.

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• August 22, 1978 Setlist

Bruce Springsteen Setlist at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY, USA

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Tour: Darkness Tour statistics Add setlist

• Good Rocking Tonight ( Roy Brown  cover) Play Video
• Badlands Play Video
• Streets of Fire Play Video
• Spirit in the Night Play Video
• Darkness on the Edge of Town Play Video
• Factory Play Video
• The Promised Land Play Video
• Prove It All Night Play Video
• Racing in the Street Play Video
• Thunder Road Play Video
• Jungleland Play Video
• Paradise by the "C" Play Video
• For You Play Video
• 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) Play Video
• Candy's Room Play Video
• Mona / She's the One Play Video
• Growin' Up Play Video
• Backstreets Play Video
• Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) ( including "Let's Twist Again" snippet ) Play Video
• Born to Run Play Video
• Because the Night ( Patti Smith Group  cover) Play Video
• Quarter to Three ( Gary “U.S.” Bonds  cover) ( including "Oh, What a Night" snippet ) Play Video

Edits and Comments

20 activities (last edit by ExecutiveChimp , 31 Aug 2020, 02:50 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• Candy's Room
• Darkness on the Edge of Town
• Prove It All Night
• Racing in the Street
• Streets of Fire
• The Promised Land
• Backstreets
• Born to Run
• Thunder Road
• Growin' Up
• Spirit in the Night
• Because the Night by Patti Smith Group
• Good Rocking Tonight by Roy Brown
• Quarter to Three by Gary “U.S.” Bonds
• 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
• Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
• Paradise by the "C"
• Mona / She's the One

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The 1978 Radio Broadcasts of Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness Tour

Bruce Springsteen has played over a thousand shows over the last four decades, nearly all of which will live forever in the hearts and memories of the fans who were there, as those nights have been to known to change, or even save lives.  As fans talk about those shows, shows are referred to in a multitude of ways, such as by their date (“That July 18, 2003, show had a phenomenal encore”), their placement within a lengthy stand (“I thought the last night of the Los Angeles shows in ‘81 was better than the first”), by the venue and year (“The best version of ‘Incident’ ever was the Main Point ‘75”), or just by the city and tour (“That Detroit Darkness show had some cool chestnuts in the set list”).

However, there are a handful of shows that are so well-known and legendary that they are referred to simply by one name:  Agora, Passaic, and Winterland.  These shows have become part of a Springsteen fan’s vernacular and used as a point of reference when discussing just about every aspect of Bruce’s career.

To make sure we’re all on the same page: 1. Agora: The Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH, August 9, 1978 2. Passaic: Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, September 19, 1978 3. Winterland: The Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, CA, December 15, 1978

In addition to all being from the same tour, the legendary Darkness on the Edge of Town tour of 1978, they were also broadcast live on the radio.  And they weren’t broadcast just in the city of origin, but throughout the surrounding areas — the Agora show was heard throughout the Mid-west; Passiac was heard up and down the Northeast, and Winterland was broadcast in Northern California up through Seattle, Washington — all areas that had supported Bruce in the first five years of his recording career, including the extended time between the Born to Run album and its 1978 follow-up, Darkness on the Edge of Town.

There were two other radio broadcasts in 1978:  July 7 from the Roxy in Los Angeles, CA, and September 30 from the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, GA.

However, the Roxy didn’t receive its proper due because it was never properly represented on a vinyl bootleg, but the bootleg CD is considered one of the best around; and the Southeast United States was hit by a wave of thunderstorms on the night of September 30 that caused interference in the radio reception .

And what has became evident is that more than just a handful of the thousands of listeners at home were recording the broadcasts to be listened to over and over again.  It didn’t matter if the recording was made using expensive, state-of-the-art stereo equipment or by holding a Radio Shack cassette player up to the speakers of a transistor radio, those tapes were treated like gold by many of those home-tapers.  There have been countless stories posted to various online Springsteen forums over the years of how people played those tapes until they literally disintegrated.

But not everyone rolling tape on each of the broadcasts were doing so for completely altruistic purposes.  Within months, vinyl copies of each broadcast were available for purchase at independent record stores and mail order outlets that advertised in the classified section of Goldmine magazine and similar publications.  This development enabled even more fans to hear these amazing shows in the same outstanding quality — give or take some vinyl degradation — as they originally aired, which was quite a change from most bootlegs at the time.  We’ll pass on the ethical discussion concerning these non-sanctioned releases at this time, though.

Over time, the titles given these original vinyl pressings quickly became part of the Springsteen discussion.  The Cleveland, OH, show from August 9 was released with the title, “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”; the September 19 show in Passaic, NJ, “Piece de Resistance”; and December 15 from San Francisco “Live in the Promised Land.”  Some fans didn’t know the dates of the shows, but just the title of the vinyl bootleg.  Of course, it didn’t hurt that the first bootleg CD releases of these shows in the early 1990s carried the same title.

In addition to the great sound on those vinyl bootlegs, the packaging of those releases bordered on professional quality.  Each was released in a cardboard box, much like the one in which “Live 75-85” was initially released, with cover graphics that, while not fancy, were certainly beyond the black and white inserts included with many bootlegs of the time.  And “Live in the Promised Land” featured a small poster featuring a photo of Bruce and Clarence taken at the actual show.

Between the excellent sound quality and the solid-if-unspectacular packaging, these vinyl bootlegs became the unofficial and de facto Springsteen live albums, and remained as such until “Live 75-85” was released in late 1986.  And as live albums go, you really couldn’t do much better than those releases; the 1978 tour was Bruce at his most intense, emotionally baring all each night, and then releasing all that angst in a ten-minute version of “Quarter to Three” that neither Bruce nor the crowd wanted to end.  And the recordings of those shows, whether they were on vinyl or cassette (or, later, CD), were treasured like the Holy Grail.

While most items treated like gold are put away in a safe place, the tapes of those shows were played repeatedly, until the songs and, more humorously, the between-song banter had became burned into the collective memory of Springsteen fans worldwide, even if each fan was listening separately.  That shared, but separate, listening experience has become a bond for Bruce fans over the years; who else would know about Dominic, Eddie, and Matty, to each of whom Bruce dedicated a song during the Passaic show, or that vomiting in your girl’s purse was allowed during “Sherry Darling” in Cleveland, or that Bruce revealed himself to be a private detective during the December 15 broadcast and was searching for the girl who jilted him after they ran away together?  And, of course, there’s Kid Leo’s intro from the Agora:  “Round for round, pound for pound, there ain’t no finer band around,” a description of the band that described them in 1978 and still describes them today.

Then, of course, there are the songs, many of them in their definitive arrangement: the surging start to “Badlands,” the slow harmonica intro to “The Promised Land,” Danny’s sad but beautiful organ before the band kicked into “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” and, of course, the extended piano and guitar jam that segued into “Prove It All Night.”  The album may have been nearly perfect, but Bruce improved upon them on-stage, and it’s those live ‘78 performances from the radio broadcasts that many fans hear when they play those songs in their heads.  Even songs unreleased by Bruce at the time — “Fire,” “Because the Night,” and “The Fever” — were performed in what easily could have been their definitive arrangements.

For many fans, these songs weren’t just the definitive versions or their favorite versions of the songs, they were The Songs.  The songs just didn’t sound “right” when heard from any other source, including the album and subsequent live performances.  Hearing “The Ties That Bind” when the piano after the opening drum beats was replaced by guitar was jarring; if the fading music of “Racing in the Street” didn’t include Bruce talking about driving in the dessert and an old Robert Mitchum film before segueing into “Thunder Road,” something was missing; and if “Streets of Fire” opened with anything other than that searing guitar solo as played in Passaic, well, then, the world was just off-kilter.

One particular trait of Springsteen fans is their evangelical desire to spread the Gospel of Bruce, and the tapes of those shows were always Exhibit A when a non-believer was met.  We could safely speculate that thousands of copies of those radio broadcasts were made in dorm rooms or basements in the months and years after the original broadcast dates.  Now whether or not Passiac, Agora, or Winterland converted thousands of non-believers into Bruce Tramps is another story, but it is hard to imagine that no further copies of those tapes were made.

Or maybe it’s not another story as to whether those copied tapes converted fans.  Less than a year after the Darkness tour ended, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were added to the already-lengthy list of performers at the Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and what had been shaping up to be the bastard cousin of Woodstock turned into Bruce’s coming out party to the rock world.  The media attention generated by Bruce’s participation far out-weighed what the shows had been receiving when the Doobie Brothers and Crosby, Stills, and Nash were the headliners.  Bruce and the E Street Band played two of the five nights, with the “Bruuucing!” from the audience leaving both Chaka Khan and Bonnie Raitt wishing his mother had named him something else.  Of course, 13 months prior to the MUSE shows, Bruce sold out three nights at the same venue by himself, but things were clearly on a different level when Bruce was the media focus of the multi-artist bill.  The resulting live album and concert film from MUSE also contributed heavily to Bruce’s popularity growth prior to the release of his fifth album, but the momentum from the Darkness tour, and the radio broadcasts, put him squarely in the position to explode.

And explode he did.  Through his first four albums, Bruce’s highest position on Billboard’s singles charts with one of his own songs (the Pointer Sisters hit the Top Ten with “Fire” and Patti Smith hit the Top 20 with “Because the Night”) was 23 (with the “Born to Run” single) although both the Born to Run and Darkness LPs peaked in the Top Ten on the album charts.  However, in the fall of 1980, the lead single from “The River” album, “Hungry Heart,” hit the Top Ten on the singles charts, the first of nearly a dozen times that would happen over the ensuing decade.

From a touring standpoint, the explosion was even bigger.  Most of the 1978 tour was spent in mid-sized arenas and theatres, only playing the major arenas on the East Coast.  However, the 1980 tour was booked in major arenas nearly all across the country, often multiple nights.  In May 1978, Bruce played three nights at the Boston Music Hall, but in December 1980, he played two nights at the Boston Garden.  He played two nights in Pittsburgh at the end of the 1978 jaunt at the Stanley Theatre, and he played two more nights there in 1980, but at the Civic Center, the same place the professional hockey team called home.

In the 32+ years since the Darkness tour, several generations of Springsteen fans have discovered the world of “fan-based recordings” through one path or another.  If the fan has already seen a live Bruce show, their first show to track down is the one(s) they’ve seen, but next on the list are the 1978 radio broadcasts, with the stellar sound quality and amazing performances.  And when a fan, especially one just discovering Bruce’s music, hears the “Prove It All Night” with the long guitar intro or experiences (there’s really no other way to describe it, even through “just” a recording) the emotionally raw “Backstreets” interlude for the first time, they’re hooked.  It’s not difficult to see why these particular shows — the Agora, Passaic, and Winterland — have played such a huge role in the Springsteen fan community.

While we’ll never be able to quantify how much of a role those radio broadcasts had in the wave momentum that took Bruce from Northeast Cult Artist to Top Ten Rocker, it’s a component that certainly cannot be ignored.

Flynn Mclean

Discover the limited edition Bruce Springsteen book, The Light in Darkness . The Light in Darkness is a collector’s edition, we are almost sold out. Less than 30 copies remain. A great companion piece to The Promise box set, it focuses on the 1978 Darkness on The Edge of Town album and tour

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Bruce Springsteen Begins a Tour

By John Rockwell Special to The New York Times

• May 25, 1978

B UFFALO, May 24 — Bruce Springsteen has been under a number of clouds of late. After an enormous amount of attention in 1975, he slipped from sight. There was a protracted legal battle over questions of his management, record production and publishing ownership. When that was resolved he spent a characteristically extended amount of time perfecting his new album—which is due out in a week.

The result was that his concert at the 3,500‐seat Shea's Buffalo Theater last night, which opened a four‐monthlong summer tour, was his first live performance in more than a year, and his new record, “Darkness on the Edge cf Town,” will be his first in nearly three years.

In the interim, a number of imitators have emerged, above all Meat Loaf and Billy Falcon. And there has been good deal of doubt among the faint of heart about what Bruce Springsteen really was. Maybe he wasn't so good after all, some worried. Talk of “media hype” filled the air, and people who didn't know about his legal troubles assumed he'd simply faded away.

Well, he hasn't faded away, as his new album should prove. And his performance here—despite some inevitable rustiness and opening‐night hitches —was simply wonderful. Mr. Springsteen was about the finest perormer in rock‐and‐roll a couple of years ago, and he hasn't slipped an inch.

As usual with him, there was no opening act. Mr. Springsteen came on a half‐hour late, played for an hour, tool: a half‐hour intermission r..n..! came back for another 85 minutes (counting delays between the several encores).

When he charged onto the stage, dressed in a black three‐piece suit with a dark‐blue shirt he launched into an uptempo new song called “Badlands” and immediately established an atmosphere of ebullence and euphoria. But that soon dissipated, at least for most of the first set. The crowd was enthusiastic and warm, filling the air with what, sounded like the murmurings of disgruntled owls, but turned out to be “Bruce,” “Bruce,” “Bruce,” chanted over and over again. But they realty came to life only when Mr. Springsteen got around to favorites like “Thunder Road” and ‘'Spirit in the Night.”

The main reason for the crowd's relative restraint was that Mr. Springsteen chose to perform nearly his entire, long new album—all night, only one song from it was missing—and to put most of the novelties in the first half. “You gotta play what you want to play, or else it's no fun,” he explained after the backstage. And he pointed out that before his last album, “Born to Rim,” came out, he and the band were on the road for a full two months playing its songs.

Altogether Mr. Springsteen seemed exceedingly happy backstage to he back on the road, but he admitted to a bit of nervousness early in the show, and that may have muted its impact, along with all the novelties. “I had a good time,” he said. “But I didn't rearly realize I was gonna play again until I was up there. It was very different from the first nights of other tours; it was almost unreal.”

A further problem at the outset was a murky and feedback‐ridden sound system. It was improved as the show progressed, but was always a bit too close to the Wagnerian, echoic, bassheavy sound mix Mr. Springsteen prefers on records.

But even if they're unfamiliar, the new songs sound very strong. And when Mr. Springsteen moved into a greater proportion of old songs in the second set, the crowd was deliriously with him. Perhaps as a result, the E Street Band and Mr. Springsteen himself seemed to warm to their tasks, and by the end the hall was as tumultuous a bedlam as most of Mr. Springsteen's have seen.

For documentation, one should report that he played songs from all his a??bu?? with several exceptions. There was a number called “The Promise”which isn't ??n the album, he implied later, because it might be interpreted a?? a narrow comment on his legal troubles. There was a 1950's‐ish rocker called “Fire.” which Robert Gordon has recorded. There was an instrumental number that led off the second set, and an oldie, the Dovells's “You Can't Sit Down,‐ of the sort Mr. Springsteen and the whole Asbury Park crowd does so well.

Nobody's perfect, and aside from the opening‐n??pht reservations. there can be no doubt that Mr. Springsteen has his fault. His songs often sound alike, tuneless and insistent and overblown in their arrangements. He is fixated on a constellation of aging‐adolescent themes and images. His voice can be little mere than a hoarse shout.

But at his frequent best, his energy and charisma, as well as his demonstrable musical and poetic talents, coalesce into an experience of rare power, the repetitive elements building cumulati,, ely into climaxes of extraordinary fervor.

He wasn't always at his very best, but he came exhiliratingly close. If this be take?? ass further hype, so he its see and hear for yourself. At the end of the concert art Springsteen pointed at the audience and shouted again and again, “Ale you alive?'’ and the crowd shouted back, “Yeah,” “yeah.” More pre??sely he was alive, and they had been enlivened.

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The Darkness Tour '78 - The Definitive Anthology

Box set, 3cd.

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Editorial Reviews

The Darkness on the Edge of Town album was the long awaited follow up to Born To Run . It was released in the late spring of 1978 and came after a three year gap triggered by legal wrangles. To celebrate the launch of the album Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band undertook a major concert tour of North America which comprised 115 performances. The Darkness shows were longer than those in previous Springsteen tours, lasting around three hours and generally comprised 25 songs. These shows have long since been regarded by Springsteen fans as representing The Boss at his creative peak. Each Springsteen concert has its own special highlights so choosing a single night to epitomise the 1978 Darkness tour is an impossible task. Fortunately, five complete shows were broadcast live on radio. These broadcasts were all mixed by Jimmy Iovine and are therefore of first class audio quality. This three disc anthology was created to capture the magic of the Darkness tour by bringing together the very best performances from each of the five live broadcasts. The aim was to produce a composite three disc anthology to conjure up the spirit of one mythical, magical night from 1978 showcasing the Boss at his very best. Included here are the carefully curated highlights from five shows beginning with the 7th July 1978 show at The Roxy, broadcast on KMET followed by the best of 9th August show at the Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, broadcast on WMMS, the 19th September show at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey, which was broadcast on WNEW-FM, the 30th September from the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, which was broadcast live on about 20 South-Eastern stations, and the 15th December show from the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco which was broadcast on KSAN-FM

Product details

• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.51 x 4.92 x 0.91 inches; 5.29 ounces
• Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ Anglo Atlantic
• Date First Available ‏ : ‎ March 31, 2016
• Label ‏ : ‎ Anglo Atlantic
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01DO0EXSW
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 3
• #50,364 in Pop (CDs & Vinyl)
• #51,684 in Rock (CDs & Vinyl)

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Bruce Springsteen lyrics -- Bruce Springsteen shows -- Bruce Springsteen records

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Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - The Born in the U.S.A. Tour '84 - '85

June 3, 2024 15 Songs, 1 hour, 16 minutes ℗ 2024 Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

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The lasting impact of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the U.S.A.’

Steven Hyden’s “There Was Nothing You Could Do” explores the blockbuster album, which turns 40 next month.

There’s a reason “Bruce Springsteen” is still a viable Halloween costume in 2024, and that reason is “ Born in the U.S.A. ”

The blockbuster album, which turns 40 next month, capped a dozen-year ascent to superstardom that turned a critically adored, ambivalent-about-fame singer-songwriter into a pop icon on a scale inhabited only by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé today.

The Boss’s red-bandanna-and-sleeveless-flannel-shirt phase was only a blip within a performing career that has now spanned more than half a century. More than a dozen Springsteen albums have been packaged behind portraits of his invariably careworn mug; only “Born in the U.S.A.” came swaddled in an Annie Leibovitz close-up of the denim-clad Boss-terior. But it was this synthesizer-heavy era that made Springsteen a permanent celebrity beyond the sphere of music fandom — and made it possible for the 74-year-old to continue filling stadiums even now, despite how profoundly the America beyond them has changed.

The disappearance of that metaphorical breadbasket, wherein the workaholic Springsteen briefly became an unlikely figure of national consensus, is the subject of ride-or-die Springsteen fan Steven Hyden’s new book, “ There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ and the End of the Heartland .” If the book can’t explain the slow fade of a country that at least seemed to want consensus — which, as Hyden observes, also confounds Springsteen’s podcast co-host Barack Obama — it is at least an astute and briskly written look at the circumstances and legacy of an album whose outsize popularity has made it paradoxically divisive among Tramps Like Us.

As Hyden points out in his preface, almost no serious Broooooce fan claims “Born in the U.S.A.” as their favorite. It was too contemporary-sounding, too accessible, representing the only time Springsteen directed his hopeful but essentially fatalistic worldview at fickle listeners who’d never sit still for the 43 relatively down-tempo minutes of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” or the bleary-eyed introspection of “Nebraska.”

The latter album was released in 1982 as the marathon “Born in the U.S.A.” recording sessions wore on like a Stanley Kubrick film shoot, and the two LPs are inextricably linked. (Musician and writer Warren Zanes’s 2023 book about the making of “Nebraska,” “ Deliver Me From Nowhere ,” is good, but Hyden’s is more broadly curious.) The song that would become “Born in the U.S.A.’s” title track, with its widely-misread-as-jingoistic chorus and cannonball drums, first appeared as an acoustic, percussion-free lament during the bedroom sessions that begot “Nebraska.” Like many “Born in the U.S.A.” outtakes, that somber version wouldn’t get an official release until the “Tracks” box set in 1998, near the end of a decade when Springsteen more or less embraced the notion that his time as a mainstream unit-shifter had passed. His solo acoustic tour behind his 1995 folk album, “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” covered a greater span of time than the “Born in the U.S.A.” tour had, albeit in much cozier venues. Springsteen opened these shows by asking punters to keep quiet so they could hear the songs — hardly the behavior of an aging rocker worried about his market share.

Hyden came of age during Springsteen’s ’90s wilderness era, and he’s previously devoted books to Pearl Jam and Radiohead — bands that became huge during the decade when Springsteen’s influence was at a low ebb. But that perspective helps him to perceive the long arc of the Boss’s career. He opens the book by recalling his first exposure to “Born in the U.S.A.” as a tyke — a little-discussed but important constituency for multiplatinum albums in this era. As with the contemporaneous megasellers “Thriller” and “Purple Rain,” “Born in the U.S.A.’s” bright production and sheer ubiquity made it a powerful gateway drug for impressionable music-obsessives-in-waiting. I’m like Hyden in this regard — a guy who first decided I was a Bruce fan in grade school, years before the self-loathing and political disenchantment elucidated in “Dancing in the Dark” and “My Hometown” would hold any rational meaning for me.

Hyden is an imaginative cultural omnivore, which means his critical examination occasionally takes the form of something like fan fiction. What if, for example, the Boss had decided to pursue his flirtation with acting — something we’d later get a taste of in the John Sayles-directed music videos for “Glory Days” and “I’m on Fire” — and agreed to star in “Taxi Driver” screenwriter Paul Schrader’s melodrama “Born in the U.S.A.” in 1979? In our universe, Springsteen simply pocketed the title of Schrader’s screenplay, repaying the filmmaker by writing a title song for the movie that was eventually released as “Light of Day,” starring Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett. But Hyden builds out this alternate timeline, wherein Springsteen, not Richard Gere, plays the lead role in Schrader’s “American Gigolo,” and then Springsteen, not David Bowie, writes and performs the title song for Schrader’s kinky 1982 remake of the ’40s horror flick “Cat People.” Not profound , maybe, but fun to ponder.

Or what if Springsteen had followed up “Born in the U.S.A.” with a sequel album made up of leftovers from the same sessions? Hyden presents his suggested track list for “Man at the Top,” the 1985 Springsteen album that never was (though all its songs are real), awarding it four out of five stars in an imaginary Rolling Stone review. More intriguingly, he posits a future-past wherein the early-’90s emergence of stars like Billy Ray Cyrus and Garth Brooks persuades Springsteen that heartland rock has gone country, and he repositions himself accordingly.

Your appetite for these kinds of fanboy thought experiments is a reliable gauge of whether this book is for you. If Springsteen’s red-headband, swole-arms incarnation is the only one you’d recognize at a costume party, it might not be. But if the sight of a bejeweled, haunted-looking man with slicked-back hair and a goatee makes your brain say, “‘Tom Joad’-era Bruce,” it definitely is.

Chris Klimek is a writer, critic and podcast host in Washington.

There Was Nothing You Could Do

Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The U.S.A.” and the End of the Heartland

By Steven Hyden

Hachette. 272 pp. $32

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Bruce Springsteen, 74, breaks silence after being forced to postpone European gigs due to 'vocal issues'

B ruce Springsteen, 74, has released a video message to his fans after being forced to postpone a number of dates in the European leg of his world tour.

The Dancing in the Dark hitmaker was penned in to perform in Marseille, Prague and Milan in the coming days but now ticket-holders have been left disappointed.

News of the postponement was announced over the weekend and late on Monday, Springsteen took to Instagram to share a video addressing the decision.

"We will be back," he penned in the accompanying caption to the video in which he said: "Hey, this is Bruce Springsteen. I'm in Marseille.

"Unfortunately, I could not sing for you but we will be back to Marseille, to Prague and to Milan to give you the show of your life. That I promise you.

"In the meantime, I'd like to thank our Irish fans, our British fans, and our fans in Wales for giving us a series of shows that were deeply memorable and we just had great times there.

"We'll be back, coming back to Madrid and Barcelona where we plan to rock you into the ground! Alright, be seeing you soon. Bye-bye."

Springsteen's recorded statement comes after he and the band had to reveal doctors' orders urged him not to perform for at least 10 days.

"Following yesterday's postponement in Marseille due to vocal issues, further examination and consulting has led doctors to determine that Bruce should not perform for the next ten days," the statement began.

"With this in mind, additional postponements are required for Airport Letnany in Prague (originally scheduled for May 28) and San Siro Stadium in Milan (originally scheduled for June 1 and 3)."

However, Springsteen assured fans: "New dates for these shows will be announced shortly. Those wishing a refund will be able to obtain it at their original point of purchase.

"Bruce is recuperating comfortably, and he and the E Street Band look forward to resuming their hugely successful European stadium tour on June 12 in Madrid at the magnificent Civitas Metropolitan."

This isn't the first time 'The Boss' has had to put gigs on hold due to health problems.

Back in September 2023, he released a statement confirming he and the band wouldn't be able to carry out a leg of the tour in the USA .

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Springsteen said he was "heartbroken" at the time while receiving treatment for "symptoms of peptic ulcer disease".

The 74-year-old had recovered enough to embark on a worldwide tour this year before his recent vocal issues put a stop to his performances.

Starting in the US back in March, Springsteen had performed shows in the UK and Ireland before having to postpone his gigs.

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Bruce Springsteen Joins Joe Ely on Song From New Album: Listen

By Matthew Strauss

The country singer-songwriter Joe Ely has announced a new album, Driven to Drive , which arrives on August 2. Leading the LP is a new song featuring Bruce Springsteen , “ Odds of the Blues .” Listen to the track below.

Ely and Springsteen have performed together sporadically since the early 1990s. In 1995, Ely recruited Springsteen to sing on two Letter to Laredo tracks, “ All Just to Get to You ” and “ I’m a Thousand Miles From Home .”

Discussing the new song in a press release, Ely said:

I got the idea for the song from hanging out at an all-night after-hours joint on the edge of east Lubbock called TV’s…. There was always a dice game in the back room; the pool table had a bad lean; and the jukebox mainly played old blues songs. I wrote the song later when I put my studio together in Austin. I asked Bruce recently if he would like to sing with me on this song, and he said he’d love to. We’ve been long lost friends for a long time. One of my memories of us singing together was in Dublin, Ireland, when we both got on stage with Jerry Lee Lewis and Shane MacGowan and sang “Great Balls of Fire.”

Ely self-produced Driven to Drive . The new release follows Ely’s 2022 collection Flatland Lullaby and the 2020 album Love in the Midst of Mayhem . Last year, the musician reissued his first three studio albums: 1977’s Joe Ely , 1978’s Honky Tonk Masquerade , and 1979’s Down on the Drag .

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Driven to Drive :

01 Drivin’ Man 02 Odds of the Blues [ft. Bruce Springsteen] 03 For Your Love 04 Watchin’ Them Semis Roll 05 Didn’t We Robbie 06 Nashville Is a Catfish 07 Ride Motorcycle 08 San Antonio Brawl 09 Slave to the Western Wind 10 Gulf Coast Blues 11 Driven to Drive 12 Jackhammer Rock

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