9/19/78 is to Springsteen as 5/8/77 is to the Grateful Dead
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Regardless of the unending debate on whether the 5/8/77 Barton Hall show was one of the best GD shows of all time, or even of that spring tour, there is no arguing that the amount of people that started collecting GD tapes exploded after the original Betty Board of that show was released into the wild and for good reason. It just sounded wonderful, so much better than almost all "bootlegs" of that era and captured the band in fine, if not finest, form.
The same can be said about the Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band show that was broadcast on the radio live from The Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ. on 9/19/78. The same debate about if this was the best show of his career/best show of The Darkness Tour. Because of individual tastes, those questions may never be completely answered for both the Grateful Dead of Bruce Springsteen. What can be said with a degree of certainty is that both shows are stellar examples of artists at an apex of their powers putting on shows that allow such debates to happen and both were captured in fine quality. In the case of the Springsteen show, he had Jimmy Iovine (now there's an engineer that went places) mixing the stereo mix for the radio live and separate from house mix. I have often wondered, that despite being a top quality mix that was recorded by thousands on the east coast that night, how much better the master tapes must sound.
Today, via nugs.net, not only have those tapes been officially been released, they have gotten the full Plangent Process to boot. No, I haven't listened yet but I am giddy with excitement because I will soon. You see, this opening night of a 3 night stand has some personal history as well. Tickets had gone on sale 3 days before and I stood in line at some head store in Montclair, NJ with a rather large crowd and when my turn came up to buy tickets, opening night was sold out and I was only able to get 2 tickets for the next night, 9/20/78 and 4 for the third night. I really wanted to see opening night and was told by the ticket staff that they might have some later but couldn't promise anything.
So I waited.
And waited.
The line dwindled and just as they announced that there were only 50 single tickets left for nights 2 and 3 combined, a person who had been previously on line came up to me (we had chatted in line before tickets went on sale) and told me that he had messed up and gotten two night 1 tickets but was supposed to buy night 2. I told him that I would be willing to trade my night 2 tickets for his night 1. He agreed as long as they were in the orchestra. My tickets were in row 22 of the orchestra and the deal was done. I got his row 7 seats for my row 22s. After the deal was done we parted ways, each with a smile on our faces.
So, after teaching my younger brother how to tape the show on my cassette deck (he did a bad job...lol), I went to opening night. Being that this was going to be my 22nd show on the Darkness tour, I knew what to expect and my expectations were met and then some. As I was leaving the Capitol, I realized that I was simply chasing the dragon at that point. While I might see a better show, how much better could it be? As I hit the street, I decided that it was the end of the tour for me and sold my other tickets to some very grateful people who were hanging around hoping to scare up a ticket or two for the next two nights.
While I was still a hard core fan, I stopped attending Springsteen shows. I was at peace with my decision. I didn't see another show until 1992 and only because my business partner won me a pair via a radio dial-in contest.
Anyway, here's the set list of that evening and I will will let you know that if you ever wanted a "definitive" Springsteen live recording, this is the one to get. It's available over on nugs.net
01 Badlands
02 Streets of fire
03 Spirit in the night
04 Darkness on the edge of town
05 Independence day
06 The promised land
07 Prove it all night [With long guitar intro]
08 Racing in the street
09 Thunder road
10 Meeting across the river
11 Jungleland
12 Kitty's back
13 Fire
14 Candy's room
15 Because the night
16 Point blank
17 Not fade away
18 She's the one
19 Backstreets
20 Rosalita (Come out tonight)
21 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
22 Born to run
23 10th avenue freeze-out
24 Detroit Medley
25 Raise your hand
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Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Thumbkinetic
Pretty sure I recorded this
Pretty sure I recorded this on a neighbor's 8-track deck during a baby-sitting gig.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: skifurthur
Not from the above night but
Not from the above night but from the second night. I've linked this before and it pretty much shows the power of the Darkness tour shows.
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - Candy's Room - 09/20/78 - Capitol Theatre (OFFICIAL)
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
"Sit down! You're makin' me
"Sit down! You're makin' me nervous!"
Agreed, Tony. A GREAT GREAT show.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Thomas O' Bagenhammers
I saw one of the Winterland
I saw one of the Winterland shows in a few months later in December and it was without a doubt the best Bruce I ever experienced. '78 was a great year for him and that band.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: More Barn
I remember that tour , but
I remember that tour , but for some reason it was a show in November at The Palladium on East 14 th, or am I making that date up. Anyway the show was great and again if memory serve me, the last time I saw Bruce and band in a place that wasn't built for hockey of football. I miss The Palladium, like i miss most of Manhattan's venues of my youth
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: More Barn
wrong again, it was September
wrong again, it was September just before the above mentioned shows, getting old sucks :)
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: skifurthur
Those Palladium shows were
Those Palladium shows were killer as well. Hell, all the Darkness Tour shows were A+ shows. It was an amazing stretch of shows that, too this day, has almost everyone who witnessed one of them still say it was among their best shows ever by anyone. One of these days I should make a book out of my tour exploits from the east coast to Red Rock and back again. So many stories. The Palladium shows has couple of those stories.
The first was when tickets went on sale. I was taking a day off after one of the Madison Square Garden shows in August and decided it was a nice summer day to wash my car. I had a radio tuned to WNEW-FM and started soaping up the car when the announcement for The Palladium shows was made. The announcement was that tickets were on sale NOW!. With half the car covered in suds, I drove at a high rate of speed to the Ticketron located in Bambergers at the Livingston Mall. Even though I was at the mall within 10 minutes, I was afraid that I would be greeted with a long line and might be too late. I walked up to an empty Ticketron terminal and thought that maybe I was too late and the shows were sold out already. I asked the saleswoman if there were any Springsteen tickets left and she wasn't even aware that the shows went on sale. She had to look it up first, put in the show code and requested tickets. In short order I had a fine pair of orchestra seats. When I was done and leaving I noticed there was others waiting behind me. As I walked out of the store the line had at least 100 people snaking through the main store and security was trying to figure out how to deal with it. Got back home and had to restart my car washing as half of my car was covered with dried up soap.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
Similar story, Tony.
Similar story, Tony.
A friend went to the box office at the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix to buy tickets to see Frank Zappa. The clerk said "Tickets just went on sale for Bruce Springsteen". She asked "So where would we sit if I bought them now?" "Front row" was the reply. Thankfully she made the right choice and on March 24, 1974, I got to see David Sancious' fingers run down the keyboard beginning "NYC Serenade" while he was right in front of me. Front row for Bruce on his first tour west. Life-long fan.
One of my life's "regrets" (more of a "wish I had"), was not slamming on my brakes and skidding to a stop after noticing the big man and Bruce walking into KDKB studios on Country Club Drive in Mesa that day in 1974. I was delivering welding supplies at the time in a Toyota pickup and saw them in the parking lot and instead of stopping and pulling in to the parking lot, I drove by. It happened so quick. "Was that....?" My fantasy wish now was that I jammed on my brakes, screeching noisily to a stop while a startled Bruce and Clarence stopped in their tracks to wonder WTF? (oxygen bottles tend to alarm people when associated with screeching tires) and watch me speed into the parking lot, get out of my truck and bow. In '74, I think they would of really laughed at the reception.
Phoenix always had a thing for Bruce, even in the early days. Here's a story from the New Times paper in 2016.
https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/music/no-city-loves-bruce-springsteen-th...
"When you mention the name Bruce Springsteen, the first place that comes to mind is New Jersey. But before Springsteen exploded nationally with the release of 1975’s Born to Run, the young singer/songwriter was a star in Phoenix, Arizona, where he sold out the Celebrity Theatre while supporting his second album in 1974, the critically lauded but commercially disappointing The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle.
“I used to come here when a tour was over and stay at the Holiday Inn by the airport,” Springsteen said in concert in Glendale in 2012. “I’d get a room on the second floor and look out over Camelback Mountain.”
“Phoenix was the first town outside of the New York-New Jersey-Philadelphia-Boston region where Springsteen became popular,” wrote Dave Marsh for a Rolling Stone cover story in 1978, quoting the late E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici: "This is the first place I ever felt like a star.”
Following the Celebrity Theatre show — a sell-out when the Boss wasn’t selling anywhere outside of his home base — reporters from New Times and Arizona State University’s State Press gathered backstage to interview the Boss.
“A reception like that? Forget it,” Springsteen told one of them — heard on this muffled but excellent interview available via SoundCloud. “That just doesn’t happen.”
Peter Ames Carlin’s excellent book, Bruce, features another telling excerpt, in which the Boss marvels at his Phoenix audience.
“I have no idea why we became so popular in this particular spot. We don’t sell out a place that size, ever,” Springsteen says. “I don’t know what’s goin’ on down here.”
What was "goin' on" was constant airplay on Phoenix freeform station KDKB, an upstart FM station staffed mostly by disc jockeys who’d previously been heard on the mythic KCAC. They brought with them the wild, anything goes formatting of the previous station, and Springsteen, with his street poet rambles and soul-influenced rock, quickly found a home on the dial in Phoenix.
“The old KDKB started playing him on his first album, Greetings from Asbury Park,” says longtime Valley concert promotor Danny Zelisko, who booked Springsteen in town throughout the ‘80s. “Bill Compton and everybody at KDKB just absolutely idolized him. They had this radio station that at will could make stars out of people like Jerry Jeff Walker, Jackson Browne, Jerry Riopelle, and Billy Joel. They played a lot of Bruce music; they played the shit out of Bruce. It was really infectious.”
Which is why the person at the ticket window made mention of it to my friend. He was big down there, even early on. Bruce even came to KDKB while he was fighting legally with Jon Appel and he brought the unreleased "Fever" and played it on the air.
Bill Compton and KDKB had such an immense influence on my life. Led to doing radio, and a wide appreciation for music. Compton Terrace was named for him. He died tragically after he swerved to miss a bicyclist and launched his car into a dry Central Utah Project concrete irrigation canal. I remember interviewing John Stewart in the studio in Salt Lake. He was tight with Bill (The Phoenix Concerts album) and I offered him the opportunity to do what he wanted, peruse the library, play or do whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted. He was surprised. I told him "I listened to KDKB for many years, so I went to the Bill Compton School of Broadcasting. We can do whatever you want." It was nice seeing him smile and connecting like that.
OK, enough reminiscing. I got some kids to chase off my lawn.
Wait. Tony, one more thing. Is the audio quality that much better than the boot that's been circulating for years? I'm guessing it's much the same, just reworked a little? I have a SHN (remember that?) download from years ago.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: skifurthur
Wait. Tony, one more thing.
Yes it is. The radio broadcast was a live stereo mix made from the taping equipment (all those radio shows on that tour were fully tape for possible live album material). While I can't say what equipment was used, at a minimum during that era, that meant at least 8 track at 16ips. It could have been 16 track at the same speed or possibly faster. That is the source material that went through the Plangent Process. It was then remixed from that to the stereo mix on the new release. Iovine had a hell of time live mixing for the radio because he insisted on being in the venue to capture the live feel of the shows. Even with the best headphones, the in house sound had to intrude on what Iovine heard. He did a great job but, if isolated, it would have been many degrees better.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Bucky Badger
So Bruce’s best show ever was
So Bruce’s best show ever was in a porno theater. That’s pretty cool.