Weekly Live Stash Vol. XCIX, March 15, 2024

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Bruce Springsteen, Billy Strings, Eggy, and more.

Nugs subscribers can visit their account page to check their eligibility for four months of SiriusXM All Access. Offer details apply. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.

  1. Jungleland
    Bruce Springsteen
    9/21/78 Passaic, NJ
  2. The Road
    moe.
    3/9/24 Park City, UT
  3. Pickin’ Up The Pieces
    Billy Strings
    2/25/24 Nashville, TN
  4. We Like To Party
    The Disco Biscuits (w/ Eli Winderman – Dopapod)
    3/9/24 Pittsburgh, PA
  5. Time Escaping
    Eggy
    2/29/24 Miami, FL
  6. One Way Out
    Greensky Bluegrass
    3/7/24 Louisville, KY
  7. Divisions
    Umphrey’s McGee
    3/9/24 Aspen, CO
  8. Wild Bill Jones
    Billy Strings
    2/16/24 Asheville, NC

Bruce Springsteen, Passaic, NJ, September 21, 1978

Before The Jukebox Blow The Fuse

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen, Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, September 21, 1978

By Erik Flannigan

Imagine that years after your favorite television series had ended (be it Seinfeld, The Sopranos, Stath Lets Flats, Twin Peaks or any other), you learned that additional episodes had been shot during the show’s best years and were about to be released in pristine quality. Would it matter that you had already watched dozens of episodes from the same season?

No, you would be thrilled that more of the show you love–a sublime artistic creation for which your fandom had become part of your self identity–was newly available. Let’s say you even had a lower-quality video tape or a pirated download of one of those lost episodes. Would it diminish your interest in an HD version of the lost show, looking even better than the original series ever did?

It’s with that framing we welcome another Darkness tour show to the Live Archive series and complete the Capitol Theatre trifecta with the release of Passaic 9/21/78. It’s the final show of a three-night stand that would be the last small-theatre residency Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would ever play in the Northeast. Let’s not forget these shows were something of an anomaly at the time, coming after a trio of gigs at the Palladium and the statement-making, three-night stand at iconic Madison Square Garden in New York City, both just a New Jersey Transit ride away.

Bruce was already many times bigger than the Capitol Theatre capacity, but his home state of New Jersey lacked an arena-sized venue until Brendan Byrne opened in 1981. The Passaic shows were a gift to those who lived across the Hudson River and especially fans on the Shore. When Bruce asks during the 9/21 show how many folks in the house are from Asbury Park, the roar is considerable.

The first night of the Passaic run was the legendary September 19 radio broadcast which spiked sales of blank tape in the tri-state area (presumably). That show and the more relaxed second night on September 20, are both essential titles in the Live Archive series. Now, the equally enthralling final concert joins them.

Comparing or ranking masterpieces is a pointless exercise; instead we should be grateful that we can now hear all three Capitol Theatre performances in outstanding, multi-track mix quality. That being said, the three Passaic shows are distinct. 

Night three strikes an appealing balance of intensity and looseness, some of which can be attributed to its proximity to Springsteen’s 29th birthday, which would take place in two days’ time. The fans want to celebrate it and Springsteen lets them: he plays to the crowd and the crowd gives it right back in what might be the most interactive Darkness tour performance to be professionally recorded.

Amidst all the hand-wringing about setlist variations in recent times, some trainspotters have pointed out that for all the adoration showered upon it, the Darkness tour largely stuck to its core set and didn’t offer a great number of changes from show to show. That ignores the fact that when there were multi-night stands like Passaic, Bruce not only made surprise additions (usually covers, see below), but in the days leading up he prepped special material for the run. At the Capitol Theatre this included the return of deep cuts like “Meeting Across The River,” “Incident on 57th Street,” “Kitty’s Back,” and even “The Fever.” 

Those older songs were clearly a nod to longtime fans from the area, but the key setlist-change feature of the Darkness tour was its rock ‘n’ roll jukebox covers: the exceptionally capable E Street Band regularly performed foundational rock songs like “Rave On,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” and “Summertime Blues.” With rollicking reverence, it’s obvious how much pleasure Springsteen got from taking each golden nugget for a ride.

September 21, 1978 was a hot day in New Jersey and the Capitol Theatre was surely warm and sticky when Springsteen kicked off the evening with Jerry Lee Lewis’ “High School Confidential.” This is one of nine performances of the song that year, and marks its first appearance in the Live Archive series.

Later in the first set, we get another Archive series debut cover, Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen,” featuring great baritone saxophone from Clarence Clemons and a spirited vocal from Springsteen that includes the fitting lyrical rewrite, “deep in the heart of Passaic.”

Those are but two highlights in a sterling opening set that also includes the work-in-progress “Independence Day” and an interesting “Prove It All Night.” Max Weinberg drops the beat at the 1:07 mark, and in Jon Altschiller’s detailed mix we hear just how important Clemons’ triangle playing is to the rhythm and tone of the song’s enchanting prelude. Mix inspectors will also likely be pleased with the placement of Danny Federici’s fader throughout the show compared to other ’78 releases.

Set one ends with the perfect pairing of “Meeting Across the River” into “Jungleland.” If we needed further confirmation of Springsteen’s commitment to his performance, we get it in two signature, heightened “Jungleland” vocal lines, as he reaches to his upper range to punctuate “dress in the latest rage” and “desperate as the night moves on.” 

Given how well it worked the night before, the second set opens with a very early “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” again complete with fake snowfall and Springsteen doing his best Darlene Love imitation at the end. Clemons’ fine percussion playing and some impressive flying cymbal work from Weinberg mark an excellent “Because the Night,” one of five unreleased original songs featured in the 9/21/78 set along with the aforementioned “Independence Day,” “Fire,” “Point Blank” (in a version with great glockenspiel from Federici and piano from Roy Bittan) and “The Fever.” While our familiarity with those songs means we take their inclusion for granted in a 1978 show, if five unreleased originals were to appear in 2024 sets, we’d be soiling ourselves with glee.

The second set features epics, too, including a long “Kitty’s Back,” in which Bittan turns in a solo that’s among his modern-jazziest ever, accented by more cymbal shimmering from Weinberg. Bruce eventually presents the audience with a choice between “The Fever” and “Incident on 57th Street,” but lucky them, he plays both. 

“The Fever” brings another memorable vocal moment, when Springsteen goes on an epic, Van Morrisonesque run through “But I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I — I’M GONNA BE ALRIGHT” at 6:15. Brilliant. As nature intended, “Incident” flows directly into “Rosalita,” and after vamping on the Village People’s “Macho Man” following the introduction of The Big Man, this deeply satisfying second set comes to a close.

The encore is a victory lap and maintains the energy of the main set with more vocal gems like Springsteen putting an exclamation point on his first utterance of “Baby we were BORN TO RUH-UH-UH-UN.” He elects to close the three-show homecoming with the night’s fourth cover, perhaps the most beloved encore song yet to be played in Passaic, Gary U.S. Bonds’ “Quarter To Three.” Led by Clemons’ wailing saxophone, the version runs some ten minutes before Springsteen and the band finally wave goodbye. 

After they leave the stage, someone (promoter John Scher perhaps?) takes to the microphone to say, “It’s been a wonderful three nights. A great way to help Bruce celebrate his birthday.” True, but the real gift of Passaic is the recordings the Record Plant Mobile Truck made of all three nights.


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Bruce Springsteen, Akron, Ohio September 25th, 1996

A One-Way Ticket To The Promised Land

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen, E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Center, Akron, OH, September 25, 1996

By Erik Flannigan

Those of us who like to discuss Bruce Springsteen’s touring history often focus on a show’s narrative arc. Through his setlist choices and order, what story is he telling?

Tours tied to his new studio albums often start as showcases for that particular work and its ideas, but after several months on the road song selections turn wide ranging, at times drifting far from the shore to which they were originally docked.

The Ghost of Tom Joad tour is Springsteen’s purest in terms of holding onto its vision and telling its story night after night. That the tour eventually spanned three calendar years stands as a testament to how satisfying Springsteen found solo work and the songs he was performing. 

The tour launched in late 1995 and those early sets offered a heaping helping of tracks from the album. By the time he reached Akron ten months later–a point at which deviation from the norm would be underway on most tours–Springsteen was digging even deeper into this music’s wellspring.

Akron begins with a staggering debut performance that immediately validates the inclusion of the show in the Live Archive series. Springsteen had been invited to appear at a special Woody Guthrie tribute concert in Cleveland on September 29, in preparation for which he performed the folk legend’s “Tom Joad” to open the Akron set.

With command and focus, Springsteen breathes new life into Guthrie’s murder ballad about the plight of the poor heading west in the Dust Bowl era. The song is a darker, spiritual companion to Springsteen’s own “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” and the two share key words and phrases in their final verses. While the film adaption of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was a major reference for Springsteen’s “Joad” lyrics, the inspiration and influence of Guthrie’s “Tom Joad” is there too, and not just in the title track but across the album, and even as far back as Nebraska, where its style and shape inform compositions like “Johnny 99” and “Reason to Believe.”

From that unprecedented start, Springsteen moves purposefully through the weighty Joad tour set, which offers little in the way of fan service but remains unquestionable in its musical artistry. The seventh song, “Nebraska,” starts with a high-vocal musical prelude that drifts into the somber harmonica line, setting the dark scene that’s about to unfold. It’s a stark, intimate reading that ends with Springsteen subtly shifting into a character voice for the harrowing final line: “I guess there’s just a meanness in this world.”

The first half of the set includes “It’s the Little Things That Count” and “Red Headed Woman,” which bring welcome levity, before the fitting pairing of “Shut Out the Light” and “Born in the U.S.A.” Springsteen performs the b-side with feeling and fragility, while the A-side rides bluesy guitar slides in a swaggering reading that plays more as a cautionary tale than ever before.

A second high-vocal intro comes ahead of another Nebraska track, “Reason to Believe,” missing its original and thematically contrasting musical lilt, replaced here by a somber tone that’s chilling in spots. No one will misread the meaning of this version.

The main set heads towards conclusion on the back of five stellar performances from Joad starting with “Youngstown” (just 50 miles from Akron), “Sinaloa Cowboys,” “The Line,” the rarely performed “The New Timer” and finally a glimmer of hope from “Across The Border.” 

After delivering the set’s central themes completely on his own terms, Springsteen acknowledges the Akron audience’s patience and respect with the rousing return of “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?” The song dates back to his own time as a Greenwich Village troubadour and is a fitting inclusion in an evening of folk music. A sweet “This Hard Land” further rewards fan faith, and the good vibes continue on a quick rip through “No Surrender,” a song about the bonds of friendship and what matters in the face of hardship.

“I appreciate coming out here and having the room to play like this,” Springsteen says sincerely in the encore. However one feels today about the music he was performing circa 1995-97, it meant everything to Springsteen. In early 1995 he was at a crossroads, having effectively finished a solo album in the vein of “Streets of Philadelphia,” only to pivot suddenly and reconvene the E Street Band to record new music and promote Greatest Hits. But that year, Springsteen ultimately rediscovered himself as a solo artist through The Ghost of Tom Joad album and tour.

If we support the idea that he had to make Nebraska before he entered the inevitable superstar spotlight with Born in the U.S.A., Springsteen needed to write, record and perform Tom Joad songs on his own before he could reunite with the E Street Band. This Akron recording is a compelling chronicle of that journey, including one key piece of the original source material. 

Addio alla tua cara mamma
Adele Springsteen 1925-2024


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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Cardiff, Wales July 23, 2013

Prime Time First Run

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, Wales, July 23, 2013

By Erik Flannigan

There comes a point in every Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band tour when caution is thrown to the wind in terms of the setlist. While the spine of the show can remain intact, the number of changes from night to night goes up and the choices veer towards the daring.

The Wrecking Ball tour was the peak of the sign-request era, when fans in the audience asked for specific songs to be played by holding up signs that Bruce would see, collect, and from which he would typically grant wishes.

Sporadic sign requests go back decades at Springsteen concerts and have been acknowledged occasionally through the years. But on the Magic tour the practice became part of the fabric of the show, with Bruce acknowledging and de facto encouraging the practice. As soon as he threw down the gauntlet, “try to stump the E Street Band,” the audience upped its game.

The aforementioned point was in the rear view mirror when Springsteen rolled into Cardiff, Wales for a July 23, 2003 show at Millenium Stadium. This second European loop behind Wrecking Ball kept the spotlight on the album: these versions of “Death to My Hometown,” “We Take Care of Our Own,” “Pay Me My Money Down,” “Shackled and Drawn” and the title track still bristle with energy and purpose. Springsteen’s commitment to the Wrecking Ball album was undeniable every night.

But beyond set-closing and encore staples, everything else in 2013 sets was  for grabs, duly illustrated by the contrast between Cardiff and the previously Archive Series-released Leeds July 24 set, just 24 hours apart.

Bruce swaps 16 tunes from Cardiff to Leeds, playing 49 different tracks across the two nights. The first 11 slots in each set share only two tracks in common, one of which is the not-exactly-ordinary “Roulette,” aired just 16 times in the Reunion era.

That sense of “anything can happen” at a Springsteen show is thrilling to experience, both for the chance to hear long-lost favorites and to witness extraordinary musicians tap their collective history and muscle memory as they rise to each sign challenge. Sure, they nail some more squarely than others, but on a night like they had in Cardiff, ragged but right prevails.

Before we get to the true chestnuts, Cardiff commences with “This Little Light of Mine ” from the Seeger Sessions (it is also reprised in the encore), lending a spiritual revival vibe to what was a warm and balmy day in the Wales capital. “Long Walk Home” keeps the rejuvenating spirit flowing and works great this early in the set. How nice would it be to see this underappreciated song return to 2024 sets?

The band (and especially the horn section) get cooking on a stomping “Adam Raised a Cain” that goes to extra time as sign requests are collated. “We’ll do an easy one first,” says Springsteen before another Darkness classic, “Prove It All Night,” performed straight down the line.

The requests then move from easy to unimaginable. “This has never been played… partly because it’s ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. It’s a very silly song,” Springsteen says as he flips a sign that says “Seaside Bar Song” on one side to reveal “TV Movie” on the other. The Born in the U.S.A. outtake had been rumored for years and was even namechecked by Max Weinberg as a memorable leftover before being released on Tracks in 1998. It’s one in a long line of sell-deprecating tales like “Local Hero” that take shots at what stardom gets reduced to.

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, Wales, July 23, 2013

Springsteen holds a few moments to try the song out and find the key, then says, “The Professor’s very important on this” (only to say the opposite during the song) before gamely launching into the roots rocker. After a wobble or two Springsteen and the band get it to ride pretty smoothly, though he does say at the end, “You heard it first. You heard it last.”

Whether your response to “TV Movie” is “That was fun!” or “WTF?,” that Springsteen and the band are confident enough to play a song on the spur of the moment that they recorded in just a few takes 30 years prior is pretty fucking awesome in the grand scheme of things. A triple-shot of Tracks ensues with “TV Movie” followed by the charming “Cynthia,” another BIUSA outtake, and River holdover “Roulette.”

After a mid-set pass through Wrecking Ball material, “Spirit in the Night,” “Hungry Heart” and “My City of Ruins,” another surprise. “I have a friend who’s going to sit in tonight,” Springsteen says. “When I was trying to get that guitar out of Western Auto, it was because I wanted to play and sing like this guy.”

His heartfelt words were for Eric Burdon, leader of The Animals, who takes the stage to sing “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.” Back in 1975-77, Springsteen’s cover of The Animals’ “It’s My Life” (written by the late Carl D’Errico) was a centerpiece of his live shows. In November 1976 at the Palladium in New York City, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” became another classic Animals cover in the E Street repertoire. At the special 2012 SXSW performance in Austin that helped usher in the Wrecking Ball era, Burdon joined Springsteen and the band to sing his classic. In Wales they did one more time with aplomb.

Inspired by the moment, Springsteen calls for another sixties blues banger, John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom,” best known on E Street from its Tunnel of Love tour appearances which also featured a horn section. Energy from an excellent reading lingers and “Cadillac Ranch” keeps the engine chugging on a warm summer night, riding some especially hot guitar work from Stevie Van Zandt and solo turns from Soozie Tyrell and Jake Clemons.

Now in the zone, Springsteen moves seamlessly from “Cadillac Ranch” to “Summertime Blues,” with Stevie deputizing admirably on backing vocals for the late Clarence Clemons. There’s more good Van Zandt business on “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch),” which keeps up the breakneck pace for the fourth straight song before the gas pedal is eased for “Pay Me My Money Down” and “Shackled and Drawn.” The set returns to previously scheduled programming through “Badlands” to close the main set.

A compelling 10-song encore opens with a rare-for-the-tour “Tougher Than the Rest,” played only six times circa 2012-’13. With Patti Scialfa away, interestingly it’s Van Zandt who fills the essential backing vocal with support from Tyrell, creating a distinct version of the song that’s well worth a listen. The evening’s fifth and final River song (not counting “Roulette”) features another unusual switcheroo as Roy Bittan plays the customary organ solo in “I’m a Rocker” on piano.

Following a lively reprise of “This Little Light of Mine” that feels like the last song of the night, Springsteen returns to the stage to close with a solo acoustic version of yet another Born in the U.S.A. outtake, “Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart,” rearranged with tender melancholy and used as a prelude to “Thunder Road” into which it melts. The Born to Run opener is performed beautifully unaffected and the result is an especially poignant and lovely cap to a night of welcome surprises.


For a limited time, save on a year of live music streaming! Enjoy unlimited access to all the exclusive Bruce Springsteen archival releases, and more from your favorite artists.

Top Streamed Shows of 2023

2023 was a banner year of touring for many of our artists, with the app boasting nearly 3,000 shows from 2023 available for streaming. Among the myriad of standout moments, we’ve gathered the most-listened-to shows as determined by you, the fans!

From the last bow on Dead & Company’s Final Tour to Goosemas, Metallica’s M72 World Tour kick off and Bruce Springsteen’s New Jersey homecoming, there’s something for all tastes in this list. Dig into each artist’s catalog and discover new favorites with these as a jumping-off point. There’s so much to uncover from the year in live music!

The official and professionally-mixed audio from all these concerts are available to stream in the nugs app. Sign up for a free trial to listen, or for a limited time, save on a year of streaming with our Year End Sale!


2023’s Top Streamed Shows:

(In order of most listens in 2023, including shows from 2023 and New Year’s 2022. Inclusions are capped at one show per artist.)

#1. Dead and Company: Jul 16, 2023

Oracle Park, San Francisco, CA

LISTEN NOW


#2. Billy Strings: Dec 31, 2022

UNO Lakefront Arena, New Orleans, LA

LISTEN NOW


#3. Widespread Panic: Oct 28, 2023

Enmarket Arena, Savannah, GA

LISTEN NOW


#4. Goose: Dec 9, 2023

Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA

LISTEN NOW


#5. Billy & The Kids: Apr 27, 2023

Saenger Theatre, New Orleans, LA

LISTEN NOW


#6. Orebolo: Jun 10, 2023

Chautauqua Auditorium, Boulder, CO

LISTEN NOW


#7. Bruce Springsteen: Sep 3, 2023

MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ

LISTEN NOW


#8. Joe Russo’s Almost Dead: Jan 29, 2023

Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY

LISTEN NOW


#9. The String Cheese Incident: Oct 28, 2023

Suwannee Hulaween, Live Oak, FL

LISTEN NOW


#10. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Jun 11, 2023

The Salt Shed, Chicago, IL

LISTEN NOW


#11. Gov’t Mule: Aug 7, 2023

Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, CO

LISTEN NOW


#12. The Disco Biscuits: Oct 28, 2023

Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY

LISTEN NOW


#13. Pearl Jam: Aug 31, 2023

Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, MN

LISTEN NOW


#14. My Morning Jacket: Nov 11, 2023

Chciago Theatre, Chicago, IL

LISTEN NOW


#15. Greensky Bluegrass: Dec 31, 2022

The Tabernacle, Atlanta, GA

LISTEN NOW


#16. Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros: Sep 28, 2023

Pier Six Pavilion, Baltimore, MD

LISTEN NOW


#17. Umphrey’s McGee: Dec 31, 2022

Coca-Cola Roxy, Atlanta, GA

LISTEN NOW


#18. Metallica: Apr 27, 2023

Johan Cruijff Arena, Amsterdam, NLD

LISTEN NOW


#19. Twiddle: Nov 26, 2023

Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY

LISTEN NOW


#20. Kitchen Dwellers: Aug 26, 2023

Bridger Brewing, Three Forks, MT

LISTEN NOW


#21. Daniel Donato: Jul 23, 2023

The Double E Performance Center, Essex Junction, VT

LISTEN NOW


Stream all these shows and more with a free 7-day trial, or jump on our Year End Sale – offer ends January 17th.

Weekly Live Stash Vol. LXXXIX, Top 10 Live Tracks of 2023, December 22, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Bruce Springsteen, Goose, and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and more. Paid nugs subscribers may be eligible for 4-months of SiriusXM All Access (App Only), see your account page to take advantage of this offer. Offer Details apply. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app. The Phish track is only available in the LivePhish app.

  1. Jungleland
    Bruce Springsteen
    4/1/23 New York, NY
  2. Peggy-O
    Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros (w/ Rick Mitarotonda – Goose)
    2/11/23 Port Chester, NY
  3. Basis For A Day
    The Disco Biscuits
    3/25/23 Port Chester, NY
  4. Mars For The Rich
    King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
    6/11/23 Chicago, IL
  5. Driving Song>Disco>Driving Song
    Widespread Panic
    7/30/23 Huntsville, AL
  6. Nutshell
    Billy Strings
    3/18/23 Cincinnati , OH
  7. All Along The Watchtower
    Dead and Company (w/ Dave Matthews)
    7/3/23 Boulder, CO
  8. Tweezer>Guy Forget>Tweezer
    Phish
    8/5/23 New York, NY
  9. I Would Die 4 U
    Goose
    10/6/23 Morrison, CO
  10. Althea
    Dead and Company
    7/16/23 San Francisco, CA

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, E. Rutherford, NJ, July 15, 1999

I Hear The Guitars Ringin’ Out Again

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Continental Airlines Arena, E. Rutherford, NJ, July 15, 1999

By Erik Flannigan

When news first emerged in late 1989 that the E Street Band had been dismissed indefinitely by Bruce Springsteen, it began nine years of uncertainty and speculation as to when, if ever, they would join forces again. They did come back together to record new material for Greatest Hits in 1995 and undertook a small series of promotional appearances in support of it, but the fact that they parted ways again without touring only made the odds of a full return feel even longer.

It was the release of Tracks box set in 1998 that would ultimately serve as the catalyst for what Shore Fire Media’s December 8, 1998 press release deemed was indeed a “reunion tour.” Our long, cold E Street winter was finally coming to an end, but not before Bruce and the band took the unprecedented step of starting a tour in Europe, which meant U.S. audiences would have to wait until summer to see their heroes.

This is the backdrop to July 15, 1999, the first U.S. arena show of the Reunion era and the earliest professional recording of the tour. Having been fortunate enough to attend the show, I can attest to the heightened anticipation in the building before the house lights went down, excitement you can hear just before Springsteen says, “Good evening, New Jersey. We’re gonna bring it to you.”

What follows is an exemplary and evolving performance that finds the men and women of E Street road-tested and ready for action, playing a 26-song set that follows the structural blueprint that would underpin the entire Reunion tour.

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Continental Airlines Arena, E. Rutherford, NJ, July 15, 1999

Born in the U.S.A. outtake and Tracks-essential “My Love Will Not Let You Down” opens the show, captured in an appealingly guitar-soaked mix by Jon Altschiller. For those of us seeing the Reunion tour for the first time, a triple whammy was in play: the E Street Band was back on stage for the first time since 1988; Stevie Van Zandt was standing stage left, officially rejoined after a 17-year absence, and Springsteen was playing outtakes many of us never dreamed would feature in a setlist, let alone open a show.  

It wasn’t just Van Zandt who “might have been right all these years” about Springsteen’s treasure trove of previously unreleased material: here was “My Love Will Not Let You Down” (which, like other songs here, had circulated in mediocre sound among collectors on cassette in the mid-1980s) serving as the show’s storming start. 

The first six songs of the set are sharp and provide endearing showcase moments to members of the band: Clarence Clemons blasting a big solo on “The Promised Land,” Stevie sharing vocals on “Two Hearts,” Nils Lofgren doing the same on “Darlington County,” Roy Bittan leading “Darkness on the Edge of Town” while Max Weinberg pounds away on drums, and Phantom Dan Federici pulling out the accordion for the first time in decades on a rearranged “Mansion on the Hill” which spotlights Miss Patti Scialfa on backing vocals.

Reunion needed to strike a balance between familiar and fresh and Springsteen largely got it right. Eight songs had never featured in an E Street Band show before 1999, including wonderful Tracks-liberated outtakes “My Love Won’t Let You Down” and “Where The Bands Are,” which was arguably even a bigger jaw-dropper to hear live having been cut for The River. Another BIUSA outtake, “Murder Incorporated,” had already become a showstopper in Europe; with nine-cylinder E Street power, it crushes here.

An electrified “Youngstown,” a faithful “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and a stately reading of the Oscar-winning “Streets of Philadelphia” (with solemn backing vocals from Van Zandt) brought Springsteen’s recent solo work into the fold, while vocal turns from Nils, Steve, Patti and Clarence recast “If I Should Fall Behind” from 1992’s Lucky Town as an E Street spiritual.

The encore features two other newcomers: the Joad-tour bred “Freehold,” Springsteen’s hilarious and poignant hometown confessional, and the first new E Street Band original of the Reunion era, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” which doubled as a mission statement for the entire tour and resurrection of the band.

The rest of the set is composed of classics and album cuts, some substantially rearranged like “The River,” while others offered nifty, subtle changes like the intros to “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and “Working on the Highway.” A feeling of renewed commitment even comes across in every-nighters like “Out in the Street,” “Born to Run” and “Bobby Jean” which are played reverently at this point in the tour. 

This recording’s hot guitar mix and a strong lead vocal give “Backstreets” a charge of vitality and the fiery performance make this one of the night’s standouts. Similarly, “Badlands” is buzzed by electric guitars, reinvigorated to the point where you sense the joy that the E Street Band is feeling to play it together again.

Because it stands as the start of Springsteen’s modern era, our perception of the Reunion tour is well established 24 years later. But listening to this earliest U.S. performance, the rebirth of the E Street Band is more thrilling to hear than you may remember.


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Weekly Live Stash Vol. LXXXVIII, December 15, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Bruce Springsteen, Goose, Greensky Bluegrass with Lindsay Lou and more. Paid nugs subscribers may be eligible for 4-months of SiriusXM All Access (App Only), see your account page to take advantage of this offer. Offer Details apply. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.

  1. 99 Red Balloons
    Goose
    12/9/23 Hampton, VA
  2. Pancakes
    Goose
    12/9/23 Hampton, VA
  3. She Knows What I’m Thinkin’
    Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros
    12/12/23 Port Chester, NY
  4. Thundercrack
    Bruce Springsteen
    10/14/09 Philadelphia, PA
  5. Lucky Man
    Spafford
    12/9/23 Ardmore, PA
  6. Grow Together
    Greensky Bluegrass (w/ Lindsay Lou)
    12/6/23 Puerto Morelos, MX
  7. Midnight Blues
    The Infamous Stringdusters (w/ Drew Emmitt)
    12/8/23 Puerto Morales, MX
  8. Sex On Fire
    Goose
    12/8/23 Hampton, VA
  9. Recreational Chemistry
    moe. (w/ Lyle Brewer – Neighbor)
    12/8/23 Port Chester, NY

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Philadelphia, 10/14/2009

In The Darkness I Hear Somebody Call My Name

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, PA, October 14, 2009

By Erik Flannigan

The third and final leg of the Working On a Dream tour wrapped 25 months of near-continuous touring for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The run started in support of 2007’s Magic, while 2009 was in service of its aforenamed follow-up.

With so many gigs already under their belts and multiple passes through key markets, Springsteen was looking for a way to shake things up. “We were trying to [do] some things that would make these last series of shows special for our fans,” he tells the Philly faithful gathered in what was once simply called The Spectrum — and home to some of the band’s greatest arena shows.

The idea they settled on was to perform his classic albums in full. On this night the selection is Darkness on the Edge of Town, “a record that means a great, great deal to me,” Springsteen says. “I think it summarized a lot of things that were going on in the world that I was in at the time. When it came out…it wasn’t greeted right away with the kind of affection that it’s gained over the years. People didn’t initially know quite what to make of it.”

While he has alluded to it before, Springsteen’s point of view that the album took time to resonate is fascinating to reconsider. In hindsight, it feels like Darkness on the Edge of Town was a seminal album from the start, but its status was earned over time, due in no small part to the songs, “being in our setlist…night after night for [33] years.”

A full performance of Darkness on the Edge of Town is the centerpiece of this fine October 14, 2009 set, part of a four-show stand that would mark Springsteen’s farewell performances at the legendary Spectrum.

As Springsteen notes, Darkness songs have been a persistent force in his setlists for decades, but this in-sequence reading resets our perspective on the material. “Badlands” is returned to a starting role opening the album, and there’s still bite in the old warhorse, aided by an exuberant audience reaction and singalong.

Sonic sharpness continues through a seamless transition to “Adam Raised a Cain.” The guitar tone is spot on, especially the solo, and Springsteen sings with conviction that belies the years that have passed since the song was written. From the angst of “Adam Raised a Cain” is the majestic “Something in the Night,” led by Roy Bittan’s emotional piano part. 

Next, “Candy’s Room” combines the prettiness of “Something” and the edge of “Adam” into one of Springsteen’s most dynamic and appealing arrangements. Stevie Van Zandt’s backing vocals provide an extra jolt of urgency. Bittan takes center stage again for “Racing in the Street,” as he carries the unforgettable melody on piano, while Springsteen’s vocal cadence and phrasing have shifted in modern performances to emphasize weariness over wistfulness. The “Factory” whistle blows earnestly in Philly with fine pedal-steel guitar from Nils Lofgren and intriguingly angular fretwork from Van Zandt.

The stunner of the Darkness set is “Streets of Fire,” easily the least-played song from the album since 1978 in only its ninth appearance since the Darkness tour. Springsteen gets up for it, hitting the heightened vocal line “I heard somebody call my name” like you want him to and turning in scorching guitar throughout.

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, PA, October 14, 2009

The spark of “Streets of Fire” helps ignite the final two songs of the album sequence. “Prove It All Night,” often played early in live sets, serves as more of a sizzling denouement with all three guitarists contributing meaningfully, including Lofgren’s Theremin-like solo. The title track also serves as the album closer, and the reading here is full-blooded and flawless, as again Springsteen reaches for and reaches his most emotive vocal range on lines like “I lost my faith when I lost my wife,” “I’ll be on the hill ‘cause I can’t stop,” and the song’s final, held “towwwwwwn.” It feels wholly appropriate that the expanded 2009 band line-up stood down to let the core E Streeters and Charlie Giordano perform Darkness On the Edge of Town as authentically as it could be in 2009.

While a child singing “Waitin’ on a Sunday Day” does shatter the spell woven by the full Darkness, the rest of the show that surrounds the album suite has its share of special moments. The first half of the show includes the only airing to date of “What Love Can Do” from Working On a Dream. It’s a shame the song has been slept on by the merits of this excellent performance in which the band is firmly locked into the arrangement and Springsteen and Van Zandt sing with gripping intensity. Fun fact: the song also gives this concert two different biblical references to Cain.

The second part of the show boasts the welcome inclusion of “Human Touch,” which, after ten previous attempts, crosses the line fully into E Street Band territory and declares its citizenship. This lively take offers plenty of guitar, lilting vocals from Patti Scialfa and a superb ending.

“Long Walk Home” follows, and doubles as a good title for this final stretch of the 2009 tour, when Springsteen gave the people what they wanted, full performances of his most beloved works, without it coming off as nostalgia.


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Weekly Live Stash Vol. LXVI, June 23, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Umphrey’s McGee with Chuck Garvey, Greensky Bluegrass, moe. with Jake Cinninger, Bruce Springsteen and more. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app. The Trey Anastasio Trio track is only available in the LivePhish app.

  1. Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)
    The String Cheese Incident (w/ Jennifer Hartswick & Jeff Arevalo)
    6/17/23 Swanzey, NH
  2. Glory
    Umphrey’s McGee (w/ Chuck Garvey)
    6/17/23 Morrison, CO
  3. Opium
    moe. (w/ Jake Cinninger)
    6/17/23 Morrison, CO
  4. Living Over
    Greensky Bluegrass
    6/16/23 Telluride, CO
  5. Midnight Moonlight
    The Infamous Stringdusters
    6/17/23 Telluride, CO
  6. I Saw the Light
    The String Cheese Incident (w/ Del McCoury)
    6/15/23 Telluride, CO
  7. The River
    Bruce Springsteen
    6/16/23 Birmingham, UK
  8. I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)
    Gov’t Mule
    6/18/23 Wichita, KS
  9. They Love Each Other
    Dead and Company
    6/17/23 Saratoga Springs, NY

Weekly Live Stash Vol. LXIV, June 9, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Bruce Springsteen, Dead and Company, Goose featuring Lucious, and more. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.

  1. Detroit Medley
    Bruce Springsteen
    5/25/23 Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS
  2. They Love Each Other
    Dead and Company
    6/1/23 Raleigh, NC
  3. Slow Ready
    Goose (w/ Lucious)
    6/4/23 Lexington, KY
  4. Poor Sylvester
    Desmond Jones
    6/2/23 Syracuse, NY
  5. Dixie Chicken
    Kitchen Dwellers
    6/3/23 Livingston, MT
  6. When My Time Comes
    Dawes
    4/26/23 San Francisco, CA
  7. Jamflowman
    Twiddle
    5/28/23 Lake George, NY
  8. Thunder
    Billy Strings
    6/3/23 Austin, TX

Weekly Live Stash Vol. LXI, May 19, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Billy Strings, Gov’t Mule featuring Peter Frampton, Dead & Company and more. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.

  1. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
    Gov’t Mule (w/ Peter Frampton)
    5/12/23 Nashville, TN
  2. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed
    moe.
    4/30/23 New Orleans, LA
  3. Andromeda
    Perpetual Groove
    4/22/23 Washington, D.C.
  4. Melting Lights
    Pigeons Playing Ping Pong
    4/22/23 Atlanta, GA
  5. Something in the Night
    Bruce Springsteen
    5/9/23 Dublin, IRELAND
  6. Thunder
    Billy Strings
    5/11/23 Morrison, CO
  7. Help on the Way>Slipknot!>Franklin’s Tower
    Dead & Company
    5/8/23 Barton Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca,NY
  8. Black Muddy River
    The Infamous Stringdusters
    4/22/23 Felton, CA

Weekly Live Stash Vol. LVII, April 21, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Jack White, Bruce Springsteen, Goose, and more. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.

  1. Simple
    Phish
    4/17/23 Berkeley,CA
  2. Madman From Manhattan
    Jack White
    2/24/23 Aspen, CO
  3. Ball And Biscuit
    Jack White
    2/22/23 Brooklyn, NY
  4. Jersey Girl
    Bruce Springsteen
    4/14/23 Newark, NJ
  5. Genesis
    Widespread Panic
    4/16/23 Austin, TX
  6. Draconian
    Umphrey’s McGee
    4/14/23 Orlando, FL
  7. Pancakes
    Goose
    4/15/23 Chicago, IL

Weekly Live Stash Vol. LVI, April 14, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Greensky Bluegrass, Spafford, Eggy, Goose, and more. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.

  1. Courage For The Road
    Greensky Bluegrass
    4/7/23 Byron Bay, AUS
  2. Down Under
    Spafford
    4/7/23 Mobile, AL
  3. Atlantic City
    Bruce Springsteen
    4/5/23 Cleveland, OH
  4. Golden Gate Dancer
    Eggy
    3/25/23 Port Chester, NY
  5. Song for Us
    BIG Something
    4/1/23 Live Oak, FL
  6. S.O.S.
    Goose
    4/2/23 Birmingham, AL
  7. Demand>David Bowie
    Phish
    4/24/94 Charlotte,NC

Weekly Live Stash Vol. LV, April 7, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Bruce Springsteen, Goose, Twiddle and more. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.

  1. Jungleland
    Bruce Springsteen
    4/1/23 New York, NY
  2. The Faker
    moe.
    3/25/23 Atlanta, GA
  3. Plans
    Spafford
    4/4/23 Fayetteville, AR
  4. Fenway
    Dogs In A Pile
    3/19/23 Pembroke, MA
  5. Amydst The Myst
    Twiddle
    3/12/23 Frisco, CO
  6. Madhuvan
    Goose
    4/1/23 Nashville, TN

Weekly Live Stash Vol. L, March 3, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros featuring Daniel Donato, Railroad Earth, moe., Bruce Springsteen and more. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.

  1. Free
    Phish
    2/23/23 Riviera Maya, MX
  2. Money For Gasoline
    Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros
    2/25/23 Louisville, KY
  3. Hound Dog
    Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros (w/ Daniel Donato)
    2/21/23 Memphis, TN
  4. Colorado
    Railroad Earth
    2/17/23 Whitefish, MT
  5. Rebubula
    moe.
    2/25/23 Albany, NY
  6. If I Was The Priest
    Bruce Springsteen
    2/14/23 Houston, TX
  7. I’m On Fire
    Bruce Springsteen
    2/25/23 Portland, OR
  8. Kitty’s Back
    Bruce Springsteen
    2/14/23 Houston, TX
  9. Ruby Waves
    Phish
    2/24/23 Riviera Maya, MX

Weekly Live Stash Vol. XLIX, February 24, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Billy Strings, Twiddle, Bruce Springsteen, Widespread Panic, and more. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.

  1. Meet Me at the Creek
    Billy Strings
    2/17/23 Atlantic City, NJ
  2. 15 Steps
    Billy Strings
    2/17/23 Atlantic City, NJ
  3. Meet Me at the Creek
    Billy Strings
    2/17/23 Atlantic City, NJ
  4. Apples
    Twiddle
    2/17/23 Flagstaff, AZ
  5. Cadillac Ranch
    Bruce Springsteen
    2/16/23 Austin, TX
  6. Candyman
    Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros (w/ Mikaela Davis)
    2/10/23 Port Chester, NY
  7. Jesus Just Left Chicago
    Jack White
    12/8/22 Chicago, IL
  8. Ball And Biscuit
    Jack White
    12/8/22 Chicago, IL
  9. Seven Nation Army
    The White Stripes
    4/7/03 Wolverhampton, UK
  10. Interior People
    Eggy
    1/28/23 Frisco, CO
  11. Driving Song
    Widespread Panic
    2/11/23 Durham, NC
  12. Tall Boy
    Widespread Panic
    2/11/23 Durham, NC
  13. Driving Song
    Widespread Panic
    2/11/23 Durham, NC

Weekly Live Stash Vol. XLVIII, February 17, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Bobby Weir featuring Rick Mitarotonda and Peter Anspach from Goose, Railroad Earth, Widespread Panic, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead featuring Bob Weir, and more. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.

  1. Franklin’s Tower
    Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros (w/ Rick Mitarotonda & Peter Anspach – Goose)
    2/11/23 Port Chester, NY
  2. The Music Never Stopped
    Joe Russo’s Almost Dead (w/ Bob Weir)
    1/26/23 Brooklyn, NY
  3. Like a Buddha
    Railroad Earth
    2/11/23 Fort Collins, CO
  4. Bridgeless
    Umphrey’s McGee
    2/11/23 Miami, FL
  5. Wondering
    Widespread Panic
    2/9/23 Durham, NC
  6. Better Off
    Widespread Panic
    2/10/23 Durham, NC
  7. The E Street Shuffle
    Bruce Springsteen
    2/5/23 Orlando, FL
  8. Brokedown Palace
    Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros (w/ Rick Mitarotonda & Peter Anspach – Goose)
    2/11/23 Port Chester, NY

Weekly Live Stash Vol. XLVII, February 10, 2023

Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio, nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music, and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Bruce Springsteen’s first tour in six years, Greensky Bluegrass featuring Holly Bowling, Perpetual Groove, Billy Strings, and more. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.

  1. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
    Bruce Springsteen
    2/3/23 Atlanta, GA
  2. Nightshift
    Bruce Springsteen
    2/1/23 Tampa, FL
  3. Come Together
    Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros
    2/2/23 North Charleston, SC
  4. Trip The Light Fantastic
    The String Cheese Incident
    2/5/23 Tucson, AZ
  5. Evil Ways
    Santana
    1/28/23 Las Vegas, NV
  6. Diggin in the Dirt
    Perpetual Groove
    1/26/23 Tampa, FL
  7. Heartbeat Of America
    Billy Strings
    2/4/23 Broomfield, CO
  8. In Hiding
    Billy Strings
    2/3/23 Broomfield, CO
  9. The Squirming Coil
    Holly Bowling
    2/3/23 Chicago, IL
  10. The Chain
    Greensky Bluegrass (w/ Holly Bowling)
    2/4/23 Chicago, IL

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, East Rutherford, 7/18/1999

The Rangers Had A Homecoming

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, NJ, July 18, 1999

By Erik Flannigan

With the first Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concerts in six years now fewer than 50 days away, a return to where their rebirth began feels fitting. East Rutherford, NJ 7/18/99 was only the band’s second US date on the Reunion tour. It followed a 36-show European leg that saw them playing beloved outtakes (finally released on Tracks), exploring the depths of their own catalog, and rounding into form ahead of an audacious 15-night stand at Continental Airlines Arena to kick off the American run.

The 7/18/99 recording, newly mixed from multitrack masters by Jon Altschiller, bears a strong sense of purpose and urgency for reconnection. How thrilling it must have been to not only hear “I Wanna Be With You” for the first time, but to take Bruce’s title statement literally as he calls in the band members one by one in the song’s intro. We want to be with you.

As commonplace as “Prove It All Night” might feel in hindsight, longtime fans hadn’t heard it played with the E Street Band in 14 years, and surely many others in attendance never had. These early Reunion shows were marked by bang-bang pacing at the top as the first two songs roll right into “Two Hearts.” Nils Lofgren may take the solo in “Prove It,” but Stevie Van Zandt’s return to the band is undeniable in his call-and-response backing vocals, which extend into “Two Hearts.”

“Trapped” was a standout when the band christened this building back in 1981; in 1999, Patti Scialfa’s vocals lift the chorus higher while modern keyboard textures from Roy Bittan and Danny Federici give “Trapped” a subtle recharge. “Darlington County” teases the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women” for several bars before the rowdy road trip begins, giving Clarence Clemons his fifth fine showcase of the night already. 

Following that crowd-pleaser, three radical rearrangements show the Reunion tour isn’t here just to play the past by rote. The country arrangement of “Factory” shifts the tone of the song entirely, removing the drudgery-implying repetitive thump of percussion to yield something more contemplative about the meaning of “the working life.” Lofgren’s work in particular shines.

Bittan and Federici similarly recast the tone of “The River” with a long introduction behind Bruce’s mournful harmonica. The spare reading, accented by Danny’s accordion and Lofgren’s pedal steel, bears some influence from Bruce’s recordings for and around The Ghost of Tom Joad. Not every fan liked the rearrangement, but there’s no denying its disquieting impact and the bold choice to reinterpret a classic.

The full-band “Youngstown” might be the most successful of the three. With a trio of players on stage, the Reunion tour had a fatter, richer, and more forward guitar sound than the 1984-85 or 1988 tours. “Youngstown” makes the case that the E Street Band can be a full-throttled rock band whenever they like, and “Murder Incorporated” reinforces the point, riding Max Weinberg’s big beat in a sharp, stunning performance.

One has to admire Bruce’s sequencing as “Badlands” arrives to take us over the top and end a nearly flawless first half of the show. The de facto second set begins with the joyous invitation of a zippy “Out in the Street” in another appealing reading that the audience eats up.

After barely addressing the crowd to this point, Bruce takes to the E Street pulpit during “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out,” which features forays into “Red Headed Woman” and Patti’s own “Rumble Doll,” plus a nod to the great Curtis Mayfield with snippets of “It’s All Right” and “Move On Up.” A reverent “Loose End” follows, and again one has to readjust one’s mindset to remember the years when it was unimaginable “Loose End” would ever be released let alone played in concert. 

The summer setting brings “Sherry Darling,” led by the Clemons’ horn, and Brendan Byrne ‘81 vibes abound. “Working on the Highway” makes a light-hearted companion before Bruce shifts gears down again with a solemn reading of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” that starts acoustic before the band adds gentle accent colors.

The full sense of return simmering all night is sealed by the first few notes of “Jungleland.” As great as the show has been to this point, the magisterial appearance of the Born to Run epic seals the deal between Bruce, the band, and the fans. Clarence Clemons meets the moment and plays his saxophone solo with complete confidence. They. Are. Back.

The set ends with a lively, guitar-drenched “Light of Day” and more snippets including “I Need a Train,” “I’ve Been Everywhere,” and a delicious snatch of Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn Theme” (Brucebase, how did you miss that one?). While “Light of Day” only served two tours of duty (1988 and 1999-2000) as an E Street set-closer, it did so with distinction, wrapping the set with momentum.

The encore opens with Springsteen in the confession booth, revealing secrets great, small, and embarrassing with admirable candor in “Freehold.” The song first appeared at Bruce’s solo acoustic show at his old high school in 1996 and its inclusion the first six nights of the 1999 NJ stand seems to suggest that as much as Bruce is back home as a local hero, he’s equal parts humble local man.

“Stand On It” is the final Tracks song in the set and features some dazzling displays from Bittan and Clemons in one of only 21 performances ever. From there, “Hungry Heart,” “Bobby Jean,” “Born to Run,” and “Thunder Road” give the people what they want, each sounding fresh after a long layoff.

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, NJ, July 18, 1999

On an evening firmly focused on the recommitment of Bruce and the band, “If I Should Fall Behind” delivers the sentiment with spotlight-sharing vocal turns from Nils, Patti, Clarence, and Steve on a song recorded and released while the band was on hiatus.

The night closes with a dedication to the Kennedy family–following the passing of John F. Kennedy Jr. two days prior–as the intro to “Land of Hope and Dreams.” Bruce’s modern day “People Get Ready” (so much so that he shares the writing credit with Curtis Mayfield) captures the American spirit as much as any song in the canon. 

The 7/18/99 recording is the earliest Reunion show yet to appear in the Live Archive series, and it shows just how ready they were to begin what we now see as their modern era, one that will enjoy a new chapter come February when Bruce and the band will roar back to life.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Nashville, 8/21/2008

Elephants Never Forget

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Sommet Center, Nashville, TN, August 21, 2008

By Erik Flannigan

If there’s any period in modern Springsteen history that continues to grow in admiration it is the 2007-2008 Magic era. 

There was always something appealing in the idea that Bruce and the E Street Band weren’t reuniting after an extended separation (only a few years since Vote For Change) nor called to service by historic events, but simply touring behind an excellent new album. Better still, the Magic tour created the setlist model we’ve had ever since.

The 1999-2000 Reunion tour marked the long-awaited return of the blood brothers and was tied to the release of the vaults-clearing Tracks, which liberated vital studio outtakes we only dreamed would someday be released. Several Tracks songs featured in the Reunion shows, and the exercise of producing the box and preparing for his first ESB tour in 11 years had Bruce looking at his catalog from a fresh vantage point. The result: setlist surprises on a regular basis—you didn’t know what Tracks song or vintage cut might turn up on a given night, putting long-lost classics like “New York City Serenade,” “Blinded By the Light” and “Lost in the Flood” back in play.

In addition to featuring 12 strong new songs from the 2007 album, the Magic tour suggested a similar reflection had taken place, but this time on the performance history of Bruce’s songs, with an eye toward the underplayed. Spurred by fan-sign requests, which took hold in 2007-2008, a trove of unusual cover songs appeared, along with choice rarities, upping the setlist wildcard factor practically every night. This awareness of what came before would continue on the Wrecking Ball tour, as requests persisted and got even more specific (e.g. “Prove It All Night ‘78”) in 2012-2013.

Nashville 8/21/08 exemplifies this “embrace the present and tap the past” approach. The concert immediately prior to the towering St. Louis show on 8/23, a previous Live Archive release, Nashville offers convincing performances of contemporary material, career-spanning classics, and special additions with deep roots in Springsteen’s performance past suggested by the fans. This delightful show also bears the unmistakable feeling of Bruce and the band enjoying being back on the job.

In a rare opening slot, “Out in the Street” sets the stage for a communal night between band and fan. The first half of the Nashville set runs strong with modern material (“Radio Nowhere,” “Lonesome Day,” “Youngstown”) and period heavy-hitters (“No Surrender,” “Murder Incorporated”), but things really open up when Bruce begins collecting request signs after “Spirit in the Night.” 

“I’m gonna test the band,” he says with a wry smile. “We played this at the Capitol Theatre in 1978.” Credit him for remembering correctly: “Good Rockin’ Tonight” earned 17 airings in its premiere run on the Darkness tour (including the Capitol in Passaic, 9/20/78) and three more on the River tour before going dormant for 28 years. Did they nail the arrangement? Not exactly (though Roy Bittan’s piano playing is extraordinary). Did they tap Darkness tour spirit? Absolutely. 

This ragged-but-right “Good Rockin’ Tonight” is an in-the-moment charmer, no more so than when Bruce shouts, “Go back a verse, Dan,” acknowledging crew member Dan Lee, who runs Bruce’s on-stage Teleprompter and helps make lost songs and other requests a welcome reality.

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Sommet Center, Nashville, TN, August 21, 2008

Darkness tour spirit also infuses a sweet “Growin’ Up,” complete with the “selling the pool table to buy the Kent guitar” story. A surprisingly rare “I’m Goin’ Down” follows. It’s the only song from Born in the U.S.A. performed fewer than 100 times, trailing even “Pink Cadillac” (125 to date). This one of three appearances on the Magic tour is lively and terrific.

If that isn’t rare enough for you, how about “Hungry Heart” b-side “Held Up Without a Gun,” played for only the fourth time ever? Bruces seamlessly slips back into the vocal cadence and tone of the original, and the band hits it like an every-nighter.

There’s no time to catch our breath before another River rarity, outtake “Loose End” (changed from “Loose Ends” as of the release of the Ties That Bind box set) in a sharp reading that again taps vintage vibes in a manner that suggests something beyond muscle memory is afoot in Nashville.

The most striking example of this uncanny ability to recall the past comes before “She’s the One.” The song was a staple of Magic tour sets, but on this night, seemingly out of nowhere—especially since he began the song as he did every 2007-2008 version—Bruce breaks into the classic “Mona” intro from the Darkness tour (and once in 1981) and damn if it doesn’t sound just right. Stevie Van Zandt catches on and brings his own vintage licks to the segment.

A few songs later divine inspiration strikes again, and Bruce calls out chord changes—“B” then “E”—to intriguingly append Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” to the start of “I’m on Fire,” a song that’s all about crossing lines. A brilliant coupling.

The back half of the show is anchored by a trio of recent rockers: “The Rising,” a potent “Last to Die,” and the underrated “Long Walk Home,” the arrangement of which is an exemplar of the modern E Street sound. “Badlands” finishes the main set before an encore that starts on a rousing “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” (it is August, after all).

“Thunder Road” and “Born to Run” follow before the last tour premiere of the night, a cover of The Bobby Fuller Four’s “I Fought the Law,” played for only the fourth time since 1981 and barely aged a day—as is the theme this evening.

For those of us not old enough to see ’70s and ’80s shows in person, the Magic tour provided a time machine to a taste of what a few of those special song performances were like. May those vibes return in 2023.

Bruce Springsteen, Asbury Park, 11/26/1996

There’s a Party Going On, You’re Missing It Little Boy

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce SpringsteenParamount Theatre, Asbury Park, NJ, November 26, 1996

By Erik Flannigan

While his Born to Run book and Springsteen on Broadway performance served as overt autobiographical projects, Bruce Springsteen’s 1996 homecoming shows in Freehold and Asbury Park were equally if not more confessional.

Sprouting from seeds planted at 1990’s Christic Institute benefit concerts (available in the Live Archive series), Bruce’s return-to-the-Shore shows break the fourth wall and at times seek to provoke the audience by intentionally revealing parts of himself that didn’t necessarily comport with the image of rock’s everyman superstar.

Coming home—not just to New Jersey, but the very towns where his music, band, and lifelong friendships were born—is an act of making peace with one’s past. As Springsteen writes in “When You’re Alone,” performed so poignantly here, “I left and swore I’d never look back,” only to be sent “crawling like a baby back home.”

Bruce has been a storyteller since the early days, spinning yarns about Ducky Slattery and the magical meeting of Scooter and the Big Man. But that became part of the mythmaking.

Back in Asbury Park for the first time in decades, he’s in a different sort of dialogue with the audience—not exactly a two-way street (though he does respond to audience shouts on a few occasions), but consciously revealing his truths and gauging response. Case in point: As he makes unambiguously clear introducing “Red Headed Woman,” Springsteen was (and hopefully remains) America’s foremost advocate for cunnilingus.

For all that’s been said over the years about how he became the musician that he is, the story he tells ahead of “Across the Border,” drawing a parallel between the pop music his mother played on the radio and The Grapes of Wrath might be the most instructive. He eloquently connects the roots of the two key themes of his formative work: the yearning to escape one’s circumstances and the desire for human connection.

Both themes are in full display on Asbury Park 11/26/96, the final night of four Shore shows and the closing night in AP. The November 24 performance was previously released in the Live Archive series, where Bruce was joined by Danny Federici, Patti Scialfa, and Soozie Tyrell. That trio returns for the last show, joined by several figures from those seminal Shore years including Stevie Van Zandt, Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez, Richard Blackwell (who played percussion on The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle), and the late, great Big Danny Gallagher, on whose living room floor Bruce wrote “a lot of my early work.”


The show immediately acknowledges those early days as Springsteen is accompanied by Federici on “For You” to open, followed by a solo turn of “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the CIty.” There’s nothing retro about the performances, which sound vibrant and in the moment, with Bruce in fine, strong voice. For “Saint,” his strumming adopts the low acoustic sound from the Joad tour arrangement of “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” which propels the song to the rafters. On that point, the same can be said of the entire performance, which practically bursts from the stage to the audience. In contrast, Springsteen’s next solo outing, the 2005 tour in support of Devils & Dust, can be categorized as more of a lean-in experience, brilliant as it was.

“Atlantic City” gets a passionate if traditional reading. Curious that the song wasn’t part of the original Joad setlists, but it became a staple starting with the European shows in the spring of 1996. The brilliant “Straight Time” was part of the Joad tour core, but curiously it has been played only once since, in Copenhagen 2005. 

Scialfa and Tyrell first take the stage for “Tougher Than The Rest,” played only in Freehold and Asbury in a rare acoustic arrangement. “Darkness” is assayed at a blistering pace, and the urgency felt in so many of the night’s performances rings true as Bruce sings, “lives on the line where dreams are found and lost.”


There’s a washboard quality in the rhythmic strumming intro to “Johnny 99” as Bruce blasts harmonica to what sounds like the riff of U2’s “Desire.” It’s another pacey rendition, and Bruce’s heighted Joad voice shifts wildly from high to low, hard to soft, demanding the audience engage.

Next, the first of those old friends, as Richard Blackwell takes the stage on congas for a one-off performance of “All That Heaven Will Allow,” dormant since the last night of the Tunnel tour. Bruce brings out Blackwell with a story about randomly running into him in the woods a long way from the Shore—near the Esalen Institute in Big Sur—after driving cross-country in late 1969. Blackwell is then joined by Tyrell on violin for the comforting return of “All That Heaven Will Allow.”

With Federici rejoining on accordion, Tyrell and Springsteen revisit “Wild Billy’s Circus Story,” and again Springsteen’s singing is spirited and invigorating, even contemporizing the Wild & Innocent classic.

The aforementioned cunnilingus advocacy precedes “Red Headed Woman,” though perhaps stumping would be a better word choice. Bruce makes a rare foray into political impressions, doing his take on Senator Bob Dole by way of positing the theory that Dole could have won the 1996 Presidential election if only he’d said, “This is Bob Dole. Bob Dole stands for a strong America; prosperity in every home. Bob Dole stands for cunnilingus.”

“Two Hearts” arrives just in time to turn off the steam, as Patti and Soozie join for this calmer expression of love, teeing up one of the night’s true highlights. “When You’re Alone” was released on Tunnel of Love in 1987, but never appeared in a Tunnel of Love Express Tour set. Springsteen finally debuted the song live at the 1993 tour’s Count Basie Theatre warm-up before its more formal resurrection for these 1996 Shore shows, tour-premiering in Freehold.

Why these shows? Bruce gives “When You’re Alone” no meaningful introduction, but the second-verse lyrics are highly apropos of the occasion. In this stripped-down arrangement, Bruce carries a lot of the original melody in his vocals, enhanced by Patti’s rich harmonies, and the result is special. One of only 12 performances ever, this is the last “When You’re Alone” until 2005.

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen, Paramount Theatre, Asbury Park, NJ, November 26, 1996

Former single-mates “Shut Out the Light” and “Born in the U.S.A.” are paired masterfully, with the B-side played first, featuring sympathetic support from Danny, Soozie, and especially Patti on vocals. The 1984 title track always merits reappreciation in its original acoustic form.

The NJ shows deviated significantly from the baseline Joad set, but the end of the 11/24/96 show reverts to form for “Sinaloa Cowboys,” “The Line” and “Across the Border.” As they were night after night, each of the three is brilliantly realized, and the addition of “Racing In the Street” between the final two is both a fascinating and fitting addition. Bruce reads “Racing” not unlike a Joad song (that influence can be felt on some of the 1973 songs as well), and the shifted telling makes for an engrossing rendition.

To the encore, and wonderful moments of Bruce seeing and celebrating the local friends who helped get him there. It starts with Stevie Van Zandt, who joins all prior guests and shares lead vocals with Bruce on his own classic “I Don’t Want to Go Home” in its only tour appearance and a unique acoustic arrangement. “Spirit in the Night” is suddenly an ode to the spirit on this night, with Lopez and Gallagher joining the fray on backing vocals.

A shambolic “Rosalita” ensues, where the spirit of the performance is again what matters most, and a video would do more justice to see the joy on the faces of these reunited Shore brothers (and sisters). 

Danny and Bruce handle a joyous “This Hard Land” on their own, but not before reminding the audience that the show is a benefit for the Asbury Park Fire Department and the Women’s Center of Monmouth County. The evening closes with “4th of July Asbury Park (Sandy),” Bruce’s beloved ode to the city, the culture, and the people who brought him to John Hammond’s office and eventually MetLife Stadium.

“I got a chance the other night to just watch my kids running around the theater,” Bruce says in his intro to “Sandy,” “bringing the whole thing sort of full circle.” The same can be said for his own return to Asbury Park in 1996 for one of the most heartwarming shows on the Joad tour.

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by Erik Flannigan, Bruce Springsteen Archivist

The Bruce Springsteen Live Archive catalog on nugs.net expands again with the addition of ten more shows from the 2016 River tour. The summer east coast leg included three homecoming dates at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ, plus massive outdoor gigs at Nationals Park in Washington D.C., Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia and Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA. Bruce and the E Street Band also performed arena shows at United Center in Chicago, Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater in Virginia Beach and Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh.

All of these concerts opened with Springsteen’s 1973 magnum opus “New York City Serenade” augmented by a string section, save for Virginia Beach which began with Bruce at the piano playing “For You.” Tom Morello makes a guest appearance at MetLife on August 25, while Rickie Lee Jones does the same on August 30, the third and final night in E. Rutherford in a set that featured “Kitty’s Back,” “Summertime Blues,” “Pretty Flamingo,” “Living Proof” and “Secret Garden.”

The first show in Philadelphia on September 9 offers its own welcome rarities, chief among them “The Fever,” “Thundercrack” and “Streets of Philadelphia.” The tour’s closing night in Foxboro is 33-song keeper, highlighted by six songs from Bruce’s 1973 debut, Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ and all three tracks found on side two of its follow-up, The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle.

Newly Added Live Shows

Note: These concerts are only available to U.S. and Canada subscribers, and can be streamed now with a free trial to nugs.net.

Erik Flannigan is a music archivist, producer, author and manager. He has been writing about Bruce Springsteen’s live performances and recordings for more than 30 years.

Learn more about the previous exclusive Bruce Springsteen audio drops

For audiophiles, we also offer a HiFi tier that allows you to enjoy 24-bit MQA streaming, as well as select Springsteen recordings in immersive 360 Reality Audio. Start your free trial and delve in.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Atlanta, 10/1/1978

Down At The End Of Lonely Street

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Fox Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia, October 1, 1978

By Erik Flannigan

In high school, I got the chance to serve as a page in the Washington State Senate, a gig that allowed me to not only miss a week of school fully excused but get paid $150 for doing so. When I cashed that check, I knew exactly what I would do with the money.

A small record store had opened up across the street from Stewart Junior High, and on my first visit I saw an unusual record locked up in a glass case. It was Bruce Springsteen Piece de Resistance, credited as a September 1978 live recording from Passaic, New Jersey. While it was a three-LP box set, $35 still seemed like a lot of money to me at the time — that is, until my Senate-page windfall.

I didn’t know enough about Springsteen collecting to realize Piece de Resistance was sourced from a radio broadcast, but I did recognize it was a bootleg. My dad was a big record collector, and though his rock interests were limited to Bob Dylan and The Beatles, he did own a couple of boots. I told him about the store and the $35 Springsteen triple, to which he replied, “Bootlegs sound crappy.”

Ignoring his advice, I went out the next day and bought Piece de Resistance. I can still remember my trepidation as I dropped the needle on the LP hoping it didn’t sound too crappy.

From that point forward, finding and listening to Springsteen live recordings became a lifelong passion, with the Darkness tour the sentimental sweet spot of my quest. I’ve surely listened to the five 1978 radio broadcasts (thankfully all now available in the Live Archive series) several hundred times; the best soundboards and audience tapes nearly as often. Mediocre recordings, sure, plenty of those as well to catch rare songs. But I never listened to Atlanta, October 1, 1978, the provisional final show of the Darkness tour.

Springsteen’s legendary 1978 trek opened in Buffalo on May 23 and ran for 86 shows through what was to be the final stop, back-to-back concerts at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. Though Springsteen would return to the road in exactly one month, at the time, night two at the Fox was meant to be the tour finale. Soon thereafter it was decided Bruce should make “one final push,” as Jon Landau’s letter to Columbia Records put it, “concentrating on those markets where we have created very real excitement, and where, with one more concert coupled with imaginative promotion, we can finish the job.”

Back to Atlanta. The first night on September 30 is the fourth of the aforementioned radio broadcasts, and as many long speculated, the Record Plant Mobile Truck remained on site to preserve the second show on 24-track, 2-inch analog tape.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band took the Fox stage that Sunday night believing it to be their last gig and gave a performance fitting of the occasion. The 10/1/78 set is like a supercut of special inclusions familiar from the Roxy, the Passaic stand, and early tour sets combined with ATL specials to yield a tremendous, peak ‘78 recording new to (almost) all of us. 

“This is the last night of our tour, tonight,” Bruce says at the top, “our 86th show. So one more time for the last time.” What could be a more fitting opener than a reverent cover of the Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time,” with Stevie Van Zandt as Keith Richards on background vocals to Bruce’s Mick Jagger lead. After its premiere in Atlanta, Bruce reprised “The Last Time” for what ultimately proved to be the true final show of the Darkness tour, Richfield, OH, January 1, 1979.

It’s a joyous start to a stonking first set as Bruce sings in his special-show, heightened-vocal range, and the E Streeters score perfect 10s from the judges. A crackling “Badlands”and lusty “Spirit in the Night” serve as the preamble before Springsteen says, “Tonight our story begins in the Darkness on the Edge of Town.” It’s a tremendous take, with every bar from “Tonight I’ll be on that hill” to the end exemplary of Bruce and the band’s commitment.

The vocal showcase continues with “Heartbreak Hotel” and Bruce in full Elvis mode. In this slower arrangement (compared to The Roxy), one can feel emotional resonance when he sings to “all the broken hearts in the crowd,” as he says in his introduction, from “way down at the end of lonely street.” That lyric never jumped out to me before, but it is clearly a place Springsteen knows all too well and a perspective from which some of his greatest work originated.

“Factory,” a lively “Promised Land” (with some fresh details in the bridge and a great closing vocal), and a guttural, 11-minute-plus “Prove It All Night” extend the winning streak before the return of “It’s My Life.”

The Animals’ classic was a staple of 1976-77 setlists, presented as an epic showpiece tied to stories about Bruce’s relationship with his father. Performed on those tours, the song was a defiant statement of independence to come. In its short, seven-show reprise on the Darkness tour, the tone shifts to reflect a protagonist no longer aspiring to but living his pledge. The Atlanta performance is the final one (to date), perhaps because Bruce outgrew it. Fun fact: “It’s My Life” premiered at C.W. Post College on December 12, 1975, meaning the first and last performances of this classic cover are now included in the Live Archive series.

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Fox Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia, October 1, 1978

A distinct Roy Bittan piano introduction comes ahead of “Thunder Road,” the musical bed for Bruce to recall meeting a kid backstage the night before who told him he had formed his own band. “It meant a lot to me,” Bruce says earnestly. “It reminded me why I started doing all of this stuff in the first place. See you out on ‘Thunder Road’.” It’s a sweet moment that only adds to the uplifting power of this version.

“This is a song we don’t play much at all,” Bruce proclaims before a warmly received and instantly recognized “Meeting Across the River,” played but five times on the Darkness tour and incredibly, one of only 70 known occasions to date, making it one of the rarest in-concert tracks from the classic canon. It leads, as it should, into an immense “Jungleland.” “The latest rage,” “a real death waltz,” “the poets,” the extended, soaring “hoohhhhhhhs”—he crushes them all.

To open the second set, Bruce reaches back to “For You,” an every-nighter early in the tour not played for the better part of a month before or after this appearance. It’s another captivating cut that peaks with the line, “You laugh and cry in a single sound.” He then lets “Fire” “go a little longer” to lighten the mood before turning serious in a stunning sequence of “Candy’s Room,” “Because the Night,” and “Point Blank.”

“Candy’s” has always been a self-contained masterpiece, so distinct in the catalog and explosive in live performance as it is here. For my money, the 1978 versions of “Because the Night’ are THE versions. The guitar work in the intro and the end, coupled with drama the band infuses into the arrangement behind Bruce’s desperate vocals, was never better. While the guitar amps are cooling, Bittan and Danny Federici take over and set the scene for the noir romance of “Point Blank,” another Atlanta performance that rivals the very best.

It’s time to give the band some, and with that “Kitty’s Back” purrs to life on a night packed with firsts, lasts, and infrequents. This would prove to be the final appearance of “Kitty’s Back” with the E Street Band for nearly a quarter-century. After 13 minutes of back-alley majesty, Bruce says those words we all want to hear: “[Let’s] do some more stuff off of Wild & the Innocent.” He goes on to dedicate “Incident on 57th Street” to his lighting designer Marc Brickman. “He’s like a member of the band. There’s nobody better.” “Incident” would also go unplayed for the rest of the tour and, save for its officially released one-off performance at Nassau Coliseum in 1980, wouldn’t appear again on E Street until 1999.

It speaks volumes that Atlanta 2 features “Meeting Across the River” into “Jungleland” AND “Incident on 57th Street” into “Rosalita.” That Double-Double only happened three times (the others being Palladium 9/17/78 and Capitol Theatre 9/21/78), all in the last 15 days of the original Darkness tour routing, a stretch that merits consideration as one of the best in Springsteen’s on-stage history.

“Rosalita” brings the night to crescendo, and the encore-opening trio of “Born to Run,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out,” and “Detroit Medley” is a flawless blast of joy from seven musicians in top form.

Before “Quarter to Three,” Bruce takes a minute to shout out several members of the crew by name, going out of his way to point out what they do so well and thanking them for their hard work. Bruce’s choice of “Quarter” as the presumptive final track of the tour is fitting. It’s a song he passionately loves; one that he knows will get the audience moving (“If you don’t dance to this, slap yourself in the face, you might be dead”); and a vehicle to allow the band to sing in full voice (they effectively take all the vocals from 2:30-3:20) for this raucous, ten-minute rendition. Crew, audience, and band, all given their due.

Eight years into the Live Archive series and 40 since I bought Piece de Resistance on the State of Washington’s dime, the thrill of hearing a vintage live recording in this quality for the first time hasn’t faded. Atlanta 10/1/78 is the great lost show of the Darkness tour.

Stream The Most Recent Drop of Exclusive Bruce Springsteen Shows

Start listening today with a free trial. The Live Bruce Springsteen catalog is available exclusively on nugs.net.

by Erik Flannigan, Bruce Springsteen Archivist

A fourth wave of Bruce Springsteen concert recordings arrives on nugs.net this September. Belmar is the latest monthly drop adding Springsteen’s Live Archive catalog to the streaming platform.

Belmar is anchored by five shows from the biggest tour of them all, Born in the U.S.A., including three 1984 arena performances in E. Rutherford, NJ and 1985 stadium gigs at Giants Stadium and the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Together they represent some of the most popular performances of Springsteen’s career, and feature not only songs from the chart-topping album, but powerful band performances of Nebraska material as well, including “Atlantic City,” “Highway Patrolman” and “Open All Night.”

Explore the Live Bruce Springsteen concert catalog

The 1984 New Jersey concerts were part of a ten-night stand at Brendan Byrne Arena, the finale to which was the legendary August 20 performance featuring a surprise cameo from Stevie Van Zandt, who had left the E Street Band at that point to pursue his solo career. He returns to share the microphone with Springsteen on an extraordinarily moving cover of Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away.”

Bruce wouldn’t tour again until 1988, but in 1986 he did make a special appearance at Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit Concert where he was joined by Nils Lofgren and Danny Federici. This unique set is also part of the Belmar drop and highlighted by the first ever acoustic performance of “Born in the U.S.A.”

To those six shows Belmar adds the complete North American leg of the 2016 River tour. These 38 concerts featured full-album performances of Springsteen’s 1980 double album The River, plus plenty more in the rest of the set, including choice River outtakes “Meet Me In The City,” “Be True,” “Loose Ends” and “Roulette” The passing of three music icons during the 2016 tour led to an equal number of stirring tribute performances. Opening night in Pittsburgh on January 16 it was “Rebel Rebel” to honor David Bowie. At the next show in Chicago on January 19, an acoustic take of The Eagles’ “Take It Easy” was performed to remember Glenn Frey. In late April, at the final dates in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Bruce and the band gave a triumphant reading of Prince’s “Purple Rain.”

Erik Flannigan’s Belmar Compilation Album

  1. “Born in the U.S.A.” LA Coliseum, September 27, 1985
  2. “Atlantic City” Brendan Byrne Arena, August 6, 1984
  3. “Open All Night” Brendan Byrne Arena, August 6, 1984
  4. “Highway Patrolman” Brendan Byrne Arena, August 5, 1984
  5. “I’m Goin’ Down” Brendan Byrne Arena, August 20, 1984
  6. “Downbound Train” Giants Stadium, August 22, 1985
  7. “Drift Away ” Brendan Byrne Arena, August 20, 1984
  8. “Born in the U.S.A.” Shoreline Amphitheatre, October 13, 1986
  9. “Meet Me In The City” Madison Square Garden, January 27, 2016
  10. “Roulette” TD Garden, February 4, 2016
  11. “Be True” Times Union Center, February 8, 2016
  12. “Loose Ends” XL Center, February 10, 2016
  13. “Stolen Car” Blue Cross Arena, February 27, 2016
  14. “The Price You Pay” Sports Arena, March 19, 2016
  15. “Rebel Rebel” Consol Energy Center, January 16, 2016
  16. “Take It Easy” United Center, January 19, 2016
  17. “Purple Rain” Barclays Center, April 23, 2016

Note: These concerts are only available to U.S. and Canada subscribers, and can be streamed now with a free trial to nugs.net.

Erik Flannigan is a music archivist, producer, author and manager. He has been writing about Bruce Springsteen’s live performances and recordings for more than 30 years.

Learn more about the previous exclusive Bruce Springsteen audio drops

For audiophiles, we also offer a HiFi tier that allows you to enjoy 24-bit MQA streaming, as well as select Springsteen recordings in immersive 360 Reality Audio. Start your free trial and delve in.

Stream The Most Recent Drop of Exclusive Bruce Springsteen Shows

Start listening today with a free trial. The Live Bruce Springsteen catalog is available exclusively on nugs.net.

by Erik Flannigan, Bruce Springsteen Archivist

More classic Bruce Springsteen concerts come to nugs.net this August with the arrival of Long Branch, the third of five monthly drops bringing Bruce’s Live Archive catalog to the streaming platform. 

Long Branch adds 33 concerts circa 1980 to 2017, starting with six extraordinary nights on the 1980-81 River tour. These include Bruce and the E Street Band’s famed three-show stand at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY, culminating with a 38-song set on New Year’s Eve 12/31/80. From Summer ‘81, there are striking performances at Wembley Arena in London on June 5 and Brendan Byrne Arena in E. Rutherford, NJ on July 9.

Explore the Live Bruce Springsteen concert catalog

The Long Branch drop also showcases five gigs from 2009’s Working On A Dream tour, including three special sets that featured full-album performances of The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle (Madison Square Garden 11/7/09), The River (MSG 11/8/09) and Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ (Buffalo 11/22/09). The 2012-13 Wrecking Ball tour is represented by eight concerts, including tour kickoff at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem, March 9, 2012; a birthday special at MetLife stadium September 22, 2012 (which didn’t end until the wee hours of September 23, Bruce’s actual birthday); and the Springsteen’s longest concert ever at Olympiastadion in Helsinki, Finland on July 31, 2012, which lasted over four hours. Long Branch wraps with Australia/New Zealand 2017, the E Street Band’s last 14 shows to date ahead of their return to arenas and stadiums in 2023.

Erik Flannigan’s Long Branch Compilation Album

  1. “Stolen Car” Nassau Coliseum, December 28, 1980
  2. “Point Blank” Nassau Coliseum, December 29, 1980
  3. “Night” Nassau Coliseum, December 31, 1980
  4. “Follow That Dream” Wembley Arena, June 5, 1981
  5. “Loose Ends” Wachovia Spectrum, October 20, 2009
  6. “New York City Serenade” Madison Square Garden, November 7, 2009
  7. “Restless Nights” HSBC Arena, November 22, 2009
  8. “The E Street Shuffle” Apollo Theater, March 9, 2012
  9. “Frankie” Ullevi, July 28, 2012
  10. “Be True” Olympiastadion, July 31, 2012
  11. “Secret Garden” First Direct Arena, July 24, 2013
  12. “My Love Will Not Let You Down” Perth Arena, January 25, 2017
  13. “This Hard Land” AAMI Park, February 4, 2017
  14. “Long Time Comin’” Brisbane Entertainment Centre, February 16, 2017
  15. “None But The Brave” Hope Estate Winery, February 18, 2017

Note: These concerts are only available to U.S. and Canada subscribers, and can be streamed now with a free trial to nugs.net.


Erik Flannigan is a music archivist, producer, author and manager. He has been writing about Bruce Springsteen’s live performances and recordings for more than 30 years.

Learn more about the previous exclusive Bruce Springsteen audio drops

For audiophiles, we also offer a HiFi tier that allows you to enjoy 24-bit MQA streaming, as well as select Springsteen recordings in immersive 360 Reality Audio. Start your free trial and delve in.

Bruce Springsteen in East Rutherford, New Jersey, 8/19/1984

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Brendan Byrne Arena, E. Rutherford, New Jersey, August 19, 1984

A Beacon Calling Me In The Night

by Erik Flannigan

As measured by cultural impact and mass popularity, Bruce Springsteen’s 1984-85 World Tour was the apex. Considering its stunning scale, playing multi-night stadium stands, it’s easy to forget that 1984 was a rebirth of sorts, the start of a new era as much as a continuation of what came before it. On the biggest tour of his career, Springsteen was rebuilding the engine while the plane was flying.

Synthesizers like the Yamaha CS-80 had been part of Springsteen’s sonic signature since The River tour, albeit in a subtle manner that was more about background tones and mood. With Born in the U.S.A., synths moved front of the mix (playing lead, so to speak) on the title track and the smash single “Dancing in the Dark.” Fun fact: Did you know a CS-80 tips the scales at over 200 pounds?

When the tour kicked off at the St. Paul Civic Center in June 1984, Springsteen hadn’t performed a proper concert in nearly three years, but he had released two new albums, including Nebraska, his first-ever solo and acoustic effort. How would those songs work on stage with the E Street Band?

There were moves on that Street too, with longtime foil Steven Van Zandt exiting stage left to pursue his own solo career. Nils Lofgren stepped in stage right to take his place, bringing fresh energy and new textures to the band’s already evolving sound, bolstered further by the addition of backing singer Patti Scialfa, restoring E Street’s gender diversity first established by violinist Suki Lahav in late 1974.

The Live Archive series already features the first two shows and the final night of Bruce and the band’s ten-show stand at Brendan Byrne Arena in New Jersey. With the addition of 8/19/84, the penultimate show of the run, we get perhaps our clearest picture yet of Springsteen flying live without a net when the stakes were highest.

While he doesn’t come in for praise as often as other band members given his position in the sonic landscape, Garry W. Tallent is the anchor of the E Street sound, and he stands out especially loud and proud in Jon Altschiller’s new multitrack mix of August 19. His playing is thicker than ever in “Born in the U.S.A,” especially the bridge before the final breakdown, and Garry and Max carry a powerful “Atlantic City” that’s as good as any captured on tape.

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Brendan Byrne Arena, E. Rutherford, New Jersey, August 19, 1984

Bruce’s own guitar strumming in the opening verse of “Atlantic City” is crystalline crisp. His vocals here and throughout the night are in peak form, a model of power and total control. Tallent’s bass part in the song’s final verse and chorus is sinewy, moody, and, as always, flawless. There’s also fine work from Danny Federici on organ as Bruce sings, “Put on your stockings, babe, ’cause the night’s getting cold.” Lastly, Lofgren’s background vocals in the final chorus ring true just before Bruce yells, “Draw blood!” They crushed it.

The 8/19/84 Nebraska mini-set offers two other striking turns. “Reason to Believe” is the one track from this show featured on Live/1975-85, but it gains additional meaning heard here in context immediately after “Atlantic City” in a different mix that again spotlights Garry Tallent’s superb bass arrangement.

Then there’s “My Father’s House,” in only its second performance ever and one of but five on the entire tour. Bruce introduces the song with a short anecdote about sneaking through the woods at dusk, “and then I had to get home and get by my old man…Sometimes that was scarier.”

In what might be the vocal highlight of the entire show, Bruce sings “My Father’s House” with vivid frankness, backed by the sympathetic support of Tallent on bass, Lofgren on mandolin, Weinberg on brushes, and Bittan on synth. When Springsteen’s rich voice rises with the line, “It stands like a beacon, calling me in the night” you’ll feel the chills. The solo acoustic “My Father’s House” from the Christic benefit show performed in 1990 and released in the Live Archive series is excellent, but this rare band arrangement is stunning.

The rest of the first set remains true to form for the period, with a nice stretch of BIUSA songs coming out of the Nebraska trio and classics like “Badlands” and “Thunder Road”  leading into the break. It’s worth noting that 8/19/84 offers notable readings of “Darkness On the Edge of Town” in the first set and “Prove It All Night” in the second. Both benefit from Springsteen’s stirring vocals and guitar work, and, in Van Zandt’s absence, Lofgren steps up. You can feel him meshing with Bruce, resulting in refreshed performances of two Darkness stalwarts.

The second set is as good as the first, and momentum is building. After the playful trio of “Hungry Heart,” “Dancing in the Dark” and “Cadillac Ranch” coming out of intermission, Bruce taps the Miami Horns for the first time since 1977 on “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” in a preview of their appearance on closing night 24 hours hence. The horns add much joy and vigor to the song, and while he was already having a good night, Clarence Clemons seems to take it up a notch, too.

A tender, solo “No Surrender” is next, then the aforementioned “Prove It All Night” and a stellar, crowd-pleasing version of “Fire.” The crowd certainly knows this one, singing along in full voice, and as good as the Big Man’s saxophone playing is, boy does his baritone voice sound sweet. He and Bruce milk “Fire” for all its worth. “Growin’ Up” keeps the sweetness and local landmarks flowing, complete with Jim the Dancing Bear (who wasn’t done for the night) and massive cheers for “Route 9” and “Toms River” in a tall tale about the early days of Bruce and Clarence on the shore.

Riding in on the emotional nostalgia of “Growin’ Up,”, “Bobby Jean” has heart to burn — and it resonates in a way it hasn’t consistently in recent times, as a standalone song in the encore. Bruce sings it as if Little Stevie were listening (maybe he was in the crowd that night, ahead of his appearance the next evening) and the Big Man lands the solo masterfully.

The set turns back to Darkness again for a pacey “Racing in the Street,” the coda for which is always a showcase for Bittan and Federici, with Bruce adding subtle guitar texture to their interplay. A long, loose “Rosalita” closes the set with extended and particularly funny band intros (e.g. “You may have read [Bittan’s] study of the lost tribes of Hoboken”), and this new model E Street Band is soaring — and most importantly, having fun doing it.

The encore moves from “Jungleland” (with Lofgren stepping up to fill one of Van Zandt’s best-known solos) to “Born to Run” (Federici’s glockenspiel rings out thrillingly) before the Miami Horns return to punctuate “Detroit Medley” and “Twist and Shout – Do You Love Me?” to cap the evening.

Nine nights into a homecoming stand for the ages, 8/19/84 captures Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band sounding different than ever before but every bit as good, their confidence rightly rising on the strength of outstanding performances by the individual players coalescing at the start of a new era.

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by Erik Flannigan, Bruce Springsteen Archivist

Live Springsteen streaming on nugs.net expands with Asbury Park, the second of five monthly drops bringing Bruce’s Live Archive catalog to the platform. 

Asbury Park offers an additional 33 shows circa 1978 to 2014, including nine from the legendary Darkness On the Edge of Town tour in 1978. These include new multitrack mixes of the tour’s five beloved radio broadcasts from which spawned several of the most famous Springsteen bootleg of all time: July 7 at The Roxy in West Hollywood; August 9 at The Agora in Cleveland; September 19 at The Capitol Theatre in Passaic; September 30 at The Fox Theatre in Atlanta; and December 15 at Bill Graham’s Winterland in San Francisco.

The Asbury Park drop also features Springsteen’s emotional appearance with the Seeger Sessions Band at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival on April 30, 2006 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, plus their inspired set at London’s Wembley Arena on November 11 of the same year. All five shows released to date from the Magic tour are here, notably the late Danny Federici’s last proper show (Boston, November 19, 2007) and appearance (Indianapolis, March 20, 2008) with the E Street Band, plus the rarities-laden penultimate performance from St. Louis, August 23, 2008. Asbury Park wraps with 16 shows from the US leg of 2014’s High Hopes tour, a stretch of concerts that saw fans making and the band delivering on dozens of inspired cover- and rare-song requests.

Erik Flannigan’s Asbury Park Compilation Album

  1. “Backstreets” The Roxy, July 7, 1978
  2. “Darkness on the Edge of Town” The Agora, August 9, 1978
  3. “Racing in the Street” Capitol Theatre, September 19, 1978
  4. “Prove It All Night” Fox Theatre, September 30, 1978
  5. “The Fever” Winterland, December 15, 1978
  6. “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” Jazz Fest, April 30, 2006
  7. “Long Walk Home” Wembley Arena, November 11, 2006
  8. “Gypsy Biker” TD Banknorth Garden, November 19, 2007
  9. “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” Conseco Fieldhouse, March 20, 2008
  10. “Growin’ Up” St. Pete Times Forum, April 22, 2008
  11. “Then She Kissed Me” Scottrade Center, August 23, 2008
  12. “Seaside Bar Song” Farm Bureau Live At Virginia Beach, April 12, 2014
  13. “Burning Love” Bridgestone Arena, April 17, 2014
  14. “Brothers Under The Bridge” MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, May 1, 2014
  15. “Be True” HersheyPark Stadium, May 14, 2014

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Note: These concerts are only available to U.S. and Canada subscribers, and can be streamed now with a free trial to nugs.net.


Erik Flannigan is a music archivist, producer, author and manager. He has been writing about Bruce Springsteen’s live performances and recordings for more than 30 years.

For audiophiles, we also offer a HiFi tier that allows you to enjoy 24-bit MQA streaming, as well as select Springsteen recordings in immersive 360 Reality Audio. Start your free trial and delve in.

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band in Paris, July 4 and 5, 2012

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band live in Paris, July 4 and 5, 2012

The Hype Is Real

by Erik Flannigan

The Wrecking Ball tour was big on multiple levels, from the length of the shows (eventually reaching four hours, breaking Bruce’s all-time record), to the number of band members on stage (hitting 17 on occasion), to the scale of the venues—especially in Europe, where the 2012 tour hit stadiums across the continent… save for one special stand in Paris.

For reasons that have never been explained, when Springsteen brought the Wrecking Ball caravan to France to open the second half of the Euro leg, he downsized from stadiums back to arena-scale for just one pair of shows that fell on the fourth and fifth of July. Those back-to-back performances, which featured an impressive 44 different songs between them, have long been lauded as some of the best of the tour. In that spirit of bigness and in celebration of the ten-year anniversary of the gigs, it seemed only fitting to add both Paris 2012 shows to the Live Archive series.

The Paris concerts combined offer over seven hours of music and a bounty of special moments and performances. Here are several worth noting.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band at Palais Omnisports De Paris-Bercy, July 4, 2012

The charms of the expanded 2012 band bear fruit in a delightful, unhurried version of “The E Street Shuffle” performed as a sign request. The song was played more in 2012 than any other year since 1975, when it thrived in a completely different arrangement. The Wrecking Ball tour edition takes advantage of the horn section, Everett Bradley’s percussion, and the E Street Choir on background vocals for a fully realized rendition that follows the original album structure of prelude, main song, and a storming, extended coda. In Paris, the crowd keeps singing the melody after the whole thing ends, indicative of just how into the show they are, and it compels Bruce to start the “E Street Shuffle” back up again for a second coda.

Springsteen keeps the Asbury Park setting, linking “Shuffle” to “Sandy” in his transition: “And then, down from town, about five blocks in on the boardwalk… if you listen hard, you could hear…” He sings the accordion-led, Fourth of July special in a low voice at times, adding a bit of age and wisdom to the tale, which on this night includes the sometimes-omitted third verse about the “waitress who lost her desire for me.” The background singers bring lushness to the final chorus as the sun sets on the boardwalk via Paris.

When Bruce opened his Fourth of July playlist for this show, he clicked them all—which means “Darlington County.” Stevie Van Zandt veers the song towards the edge of the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women” before Bruce sings his first line about that memorable drive he and Wayne took from New York City all those years ago. The Paris take is long, with an extended horn and sax section at the end. 

With Patti back on stage for the first time on the Euro tour, “Easy Money” returns to the set in one of only 18 performances ever. Bruce’s untamed falsetto vocals start things out, and one has to credit the Paris crowd for their consistently high level of participation as they sing along strongly here. Patti’s vocal contributions are a key element to “Easy Money,” which is why the song wasn’t performed without her.

In the most special nod to the occasion, Bruce moves to the piano for a rare solo-piano performance of “Independence Day.” Bruce released a video of this version in 2012 on his official YouTube channel, and it is great to have the audio available through the Live Archive series. Having played the instrument every night of the Devils & Dust tour, Springsteen’s piano playing is more confident than ever. Listen to the fine solo he takes in lieu of Clarence’s memorable sax before the third verse. Like so many older songs performed in this era, the bit of age in Springsteen’s voice only adds gravitas.

No Fourth of July performance would be complete without “Born in the U.S.A.” in its still-awe-inspiring, full-band arrangement. Bruce has no trouble finding his 1984 vocal range “forty years down the road” in a crackling rendition that puts the electric guitars on a level playing field with the synthesizers. Max Weinberg is also up to the task: while the horns add heft to the outro, Max smashes his legendary fills as hard as ever.

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band live in Paris, July 4 and 5, 2012

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band at Palais Omnisports De Paris-Bercy, July 5, 2012

If anyone needed a sign that the second show in Paris would be materially different from the first, look no further than the top of the set when Bruce and the band reel off six songs in a row not featured the previous night. Deviating from his own written setlist, the band starts what sounds for all the world like “We Take Care of Our Own” only to shift gears into a bright “The Ties That Bind,” led by Roy Bittan’s piano and rich with the voices of the background singers in the chorus and bridge. Jake Clemons takes a sharp solo, too. The stellar reading of “Ties” is followed in bang-bang succession by breathtaking runs of “No Surrender,” “Two Hearts,” “Downbound Train,” “Candy’s Room,” and lastly a scintillating “Something in the Night.” Fans in attendance said the July 5 show was truly something special, and you can hear that imprinted in Jon Altschiler’s full-bodied mix. The six-song start of the second Paris set is as good as it gets in the post-Reunion era.

“Something In The Night,” Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Live in Paris, 7/5/2012

In all, Paris night two boasts 15 changes from the previous show, including three certified epics starting with “Incident on 57th Street.” As vocal as they have been all night, the Paris audience treats the Wild & Innocent masterpiece with fitting reverence. Bruce tells Nils to take the initial guitar lead, which rises above Charlie Giordano’s swirling organ.

“Working on the Highway” and “I’m Goin’ Down” add a dose of levity and self-deprecation to the evening. The horn section and background singers give “Working on the Highway” a big jolt of energy, while the audience does the same for “I’m Goin’ Down,” yielding reinvigorated versions of both songs.

After a solo “Independence Day” on July 4, Bruce sits at the piano bench night two and delivers “For You.” This one is triumphant, reaching the heady heights of the song’s solo outings in 1975 (such as the extraordinary take on the Live Archive release of Greenvale, NY 12/12/75). Like “Indy” the night before, Springsteen plays the piano brilliantly, and he commits to every line of the lyrics to staggering effect. He also hits the last note resoundingly when he sings “When it was my turn to be the God.” As the kids say, “Chills.”

From “For You” straight into evening’s epic denouement, “Racing in the Street”—another time-defying performance. It can be difficult to describe in the written word what it feels like when a performer is in the moment, not simply performing their music, but embodying it, living the words and melodies anew. But you can hear it. That goes for every member of the band, too—special credit to Bittan and Bradley, first among equals in this performance of “Racing.”

The sequence of “For You” to “Racing in the Street,” and the top of the July 5 show as well, all capture Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performing in the moment. For years, they did so more consistently than any other band in concert. On this fantastic recording of Paris 2012, so many years down the road, they undeniably do so again.

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band live in Paris, July 4 and 5, 2012


Erik Flannigan is a music archivist, producer, author and manager. He has been writing about Bruce Springsteen’s live performances and recordings for more than 30 years.

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by Erik Flannigan, Bruce Springsteen Archivist

Live Springsteen streaming on nugs.net kicks off with Freehold, the first of five monthly drops. Freehold presents 35 shows circa 1975 to 2014, starting at the legendary Roxy in West Hollywood on the Born To Run tour. Bruce’s October 18, 1975 appearance at the club with the E Street Band featured a rare cover of Carole King’s “Goin’ Back” in the encore.

From later that same year we get the legendary December 12 gig at CW Post College on Long Island, at which Springsteen’s beloved version of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” was recorded. From 1977, a rare pair of shows in Albany and Rochester that extend the BTR tour, but showcase newly written songs like “Something in the Night,” “Rendezvous” and “The Promise.” Freehold includes all six shows released to date from the 1999-2000 Reunion tour with the E Street Band, from September 25, 1999 in Philadelphia (and the first “Incident on 57th Street” performed in 19 years) to July 1, 2000, the final show at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

The Rising tour is represented by the June 16, 2003 show in Helsinki, while 2005’s Devils & Dust tour contributes five concerts, each with a rarities-packed setlist. The start of the 2014 High Hopes tour completes the Freehold drop, offering 14 shows performed in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, a run that included unexpected cover songs like AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell,” The Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” and Lorde’s “Royals.”

Erik Flannigan’s Freehold Compilation Album

  1. “Goin’ Back” The Roxy, October 18, 1975
  2. “For You” Hammersmith Odeon, November 24, 1975
  3. “Mountain of Love” Tower Theater, December 31, 1975
  4. “Something in the Night” Palace Theatre, February 7, 1977
  5. “Incident on 57th Street” First Union Center, September 25, 1999
  6. “Adam Raised a Cain” United Center, September 30, 1999
  7. “Take ‘Em’ as They Come” Staples Center, October 23, 1999
  8. “Empty Sky” Olympiastadion, June 16, 2003
  9. “Real World” Tower Theater, May 17, 2005
  10. “Valentine’s Day” Value City Theatre, Schottenstein Center, July 31, 2005
  11. “Tunnel of Love” Van Andel Arena, August 3, 2005
  12. “Highway to Hell” Perth Arena, February 8, 2014
  13. “Better Days” Adelaide Entertainment Centre, February 12, 2014
  14. “Stayin’ Alive” Brisbane Entertainment Centre, February 26, 2014
  15. “Royals” Mt. Smart Stadium, March 2, 2014

LISTEN NOW: Start a free trial to stream live Bruce Springsteen archives.

Note: These concerts are only available to U.S. and Canada subscribers, and can be streamed now with a free trial to nugs.net.


Erik Flannigan is a music archivist, producer, author and manager. He has been writing about Bruce Springsteen’s live performances and recordings for more than 30 years.

For audiophiles, we also offer a HiFi tier that allows you to enjoy 24-bit MQA streaming, as well as select Springsteen recordings in immersive 360 Reality Audio. Start your free trial and delve in.

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band: Wembley Arena, London, 6/4/81

LISTEN NOW: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Wembley Stadium, London, June 4, 1981

It Takes One To Dream, But It Takes Two To Make A Dream Come True

by Erik Flannigan

When the River tour kicked off in early October 1980, Bruce Springsteen had been off the road nearly two years, save for the No Nukes concerts. He hit arenas that fall with 20 new songs from The River in hand; not surprisingly, Springsteen setlists grew in length to accommodate the bounty of fresh material. By late December, River shows were approaching three and a half hours, in part because the underlying structure of the set established on the Darkness tour remained fundamentally unchanged, albeit in a supersized edition. 

After peaking with Bruce’s longest concert to that point on New Years Eve 1980, the River tour resumed in early 1981 and began to streamline. The number of songs from the double album included in the set also scaled back. By the time Springsteen hit Europe in April, opening night in Hamburg featured 24 songs, down from the 12/31/80 zenith of a whopping 38.

As the European tour proceeded, the tone of the shows began to sharpen, influenced by the perspective Bruce was gaining as he experienced life and culture outside of the United States firsthand. The books Bruce was reading—including Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and Alfred Wertheimer’s Elvis ’56: In the Beginning (An Intimate, Eyewitness Photo-Journal)—also shaped his creative outlook. 

As he had done first with the inclusion of “This Land Is Your Land” at Nassau Coliseum in December, Springsteen was questioning American idealism and beliefs in front of fans in Europe who did not necessarily share the same values or background. Moreover, for all intents and purposes, European audiences had never seen him perform before and had no history but the present. The result was the most earnest Bruce Springsteen to ever take the stage. 

The tonal shift in Europe ‘81 also manifests through the inclusion of new material. First came “Follow That Dream” in Paris; “Run Through the Jungle” in Rotterdam, “Johnny Bye-Bye” in Manchester; and finally “Trapped’ in London. 

Three of those four remarkable songs are included on London 6/4/81, the fifth show of the six-night Wembley stand which features five tracks not performed on the previously released Archive title from 6/5/81. Multitrack recordings of the last three London shows are the only surviving professional documents to capture the distinctive, eye-opening spirit of Europe ‘81. 

The show gets off to a banging start with the trio of “Prove It All Night,” “The Ties That Bind,” and “Out in the Street,” presented in a crisp, new Jon Altschiller mix that puts the listener in an appropriately intimate position for this deeply personal performance.

An extraordinary duo follows. Introduced simply as “a song that was originally done by Elvis Presley,” “Follow That Dream” is performed in a lump-in-your-throat re-arrangement that is equal parts Presley’s original, Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams,” and Bruce’s own mediation on faith. The E Street Band’s accompaniment is magnificently understated, with Roy Bittan’s piano and synthesizer poignantly accenting Springsteen’s haunted vocals. If one song sums up the sound of Europe ‘81, “Follow That Dream” is it.

From Elvis’ own song to a reflective tribute, “Johnny Bye-Bye” is performed with eleagic backing by the E Street Band supporting Bruce’s plaintive, heartfelt vocals. Before he plays it, Springsteen talks about the aforementioned book Elvis ‘56 and says the following about the artist captured in the book’s images, though he might just as easily have been saying it about himself: “When you look at him, when he was that young, he always seemed so sure of himself. He looked like he had some secret that he wasn’t telling nobody.”

The guitar sound is SO clear before the start of “Jackson Cage” you might think there was a secret guitar amp hidden in your room. Played as a request, this might be the best live version of “Jackson Cage” you’ve ever heard, and it is the first from the River tour to appear in the Live Archive series. Vocals from Bruce and Stevie Van Zandt lay it all on the line, and the song’s ending is particularly tasty.

The performance of “Trapped” is only the fourth ever, as Bruce’s reworking of the Jimmy Cliff original debuted the first night at Wembley. These early versions are nonetheless fully realized and ride an evocative synthesizer line as the song builds to its climatic choruses and a saxophone crescendo from Clarence Clemons. An August 1981 Rolling Stone article called it “a scintillating new song…reworked in the searing mode of Darkness on the Edge of Town.” The audience reception to “Trapped” is immense.

The first set continues, with “Two Hearts,” “The Promised Land” and “The River” marked by the kind of heightened lead vocals that are the hallmark of great shows. As “The River” ends, the spotlight turns to Roy Bittan for his chills-inducing “Once Upon a Time in the West” introduction to “Badlands,” which explodes out of the gate and never lets up. Marvel at the interaction between Bruce and Stevie starting with “Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king.” If you need to be reminded of the power of “Badlands,” your faith will be rewarded.

A warmly received “Thunder Road” closes this peerless opening set. If you weren’t fortunate enough to see a show in the intermission era, imagine how that Wembley Arena audience felt when Bruce says, “We’re gonna take a short break and come back to rock you all…night…long.”

Set two opens with an especially delightful “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch),” again showcasing Van Zandt’s backing-vocal prowess. The feel-good onslaught extends to “Cadillac Ranch,” “Sherry Darling,” and “Hungry Heart.” On the last of these, the Wembley faithful acquit themselves impressively singing the first verse, perhaps drafting on experience from songs sung at football grounds.

“Fire” and a barnstorming “Because the Night” are exemplary versions that rank among the best of this era. The same can be said for the two classics that follow, neither of which appeared on the previous Wembley release.

“Racing in the Street” taps that aforementioned earnestness as Springsteen sings with simple, unaffected beauty in a reading defined by Bittan’s expressive and powerful playing. I have always presumed his work on “Racing” is what led Mark Knopfler to tap him to play on Dire Straits’ masterpiece Making Movies. The “Racing” outro here is sublime.

“Backstreets” on the River tour boasts a striking, minute-long instrumental introduction before the familiar piano refrain begins and we swell to Bruce’s memorable first line. You’ll hear Danny Federici’s organ appealingly high in the mix throughout the track, balancing Bittan’s continued virtuosity. “Ramrod” arrives to buoy our spirits, and “Rosalita” brings the house down, conquered and bloody happy about it.

The encore may look tidy and traditional, but like the rest of 6/4/81 it is delivered par excellence. We love it when Bruce’s vocals rise at the end of “Born to Run” on “Oh, oh, OH, OH, OH-OH-OH.” In the last song of the night, “Detroit Medley,” Springsteen tells the audience he’s out of gas, much to The Big Man’s dismay. In the end, and to no one’s surprise, Bruce goes the extra kilometer for what ultimately turns out to be a 15:25 tour de force that includes a quick detour to Memphis for “Shake” and “Sweet Soul Music.”

“Spotlight on me,” Springsteen shouts at the end of “Sweet Soul Music,” taking his place among the list of legends the song namechecks. After the masterful performance he and the band delivered at Wembley on the fourth day of June, 1981, he absolutely belongs on it.

LISTEN NOW: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Wembley Stadium, London, June 4, 1981

Weekly Live Stash Vol. XI, May 21, 2022

Listen to “The Weekly Live Stash” with nugs.net founder Brad Serling every Friday at 5 pm ET on nugs.net radio, SiriusXM 716.

  1. Samson And Delilah
    Billy Strings with Bob Weir
    5/8/22 Nashville, TN
  2. Foolish Heart
    Joe Russo’s Almost Dead
    2/10/22 Philadelphia, PA
  3. Wysteria Lane
    Goose
    4/29/22 Asheville, NC
  4. She’s the One
    Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
    10/18/75 West Hollywood, CA
  5. Freeborn Man
    Billy Strings
    5/13/22 Morrison, CO
  6. Tombstone Blues
    Kitchen Dwellers
    5/10/22 Holyoke, MA
  7. Weather Report Suite
    Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros
    3/18/22 Chicago, IL
  8. Let It Grow
    Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros
    3/18/22 Chicago, IL

Bruce Springsteen Live at Madison Square Garden, May 16, 1988

LISTEN NOW: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY – May 16, 1988

In Dreams You’re Mine All Of The Time

by Erik Flannigan

The Tunnel of Love tour again? That’s surely a sentiment some are expressing with this month’s release of New York 5/16/88, the outstanding opening night performance from the final, five-show stand on the US leg of the 1988 tour.

On the surface the POV is understandable, as most shows on the Tunnel of Love Express Tour shared the same narrative arc and core songs. However beautifully realized it was, the argument goes, how distinctive is one Tunnel show from another?

It’s curious that 1988 comes in for such carping when one of Bruce’s most-beloved tours, in support of Darkness on the Edge of Town ten years earlier, followed a similar formula, largely sticking to a consistent group of songs for the core set, augmented by select cover versions and rarities that made a particular show extra special.

Both tours showcased a trove of material not found on Springsteen’s studio albums. In 1988, that included originals “Be True,” “Seeds,” “Part Man, Part Monkey,” “Light of Day,” and “I’m a Coward,” the latter a (nearly) complete rewrite of Geno Washington’s “Geno Is a Coward.” Bruce played those five songs across the US tour. But as the Express rolled on, cover songs—most entirely new to Springsteen setlists—began to appear, seemingly out of nowhere. But behind the scenes, their origin was part of the 1988 journey all along.

While the ’88 main set stayed consistent over the tour’s first two months, Bruce and the band operated as a virtual jukebox during their afternoon soundchecks,, test-driving dozens of cover songs. Eventually, some graduated from these private rehearsals to the main set.

These pre-show performances were explorations of the music Bruce and the band—and importantly, the horn section—grew up on or newly admired. Long soundchecks, like those that took place in Atlanta, Tacoma, and New York, were practically mini-concerts played for their own enjoyment.

On opening night at Madison Square Garden, cover songs born in soundchecks ultimately tip the show from good to great. Now released in brilliant, multi-track audio with one very special bonus track, in the immortal words of Nigel Tufnel, MSG Night One “goes to 11.”

John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom” is the first cover of the night, newly added to the set two shows prior in Minneapolis. Gritty guitar and horns combine to give “Boom Boom” swagger, and its inclusion feels topical given the subject matter (“take you in my arms, I’m in love with you”). Bruce tosses in a long, bonus “make loooove” to eliminate any ambiguity.

Preview of “Boom Boom” – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at MSG in 1998

Between “Boom Boom” and the first set’s other cover, Edwin Starr’s depressingly still-appropriate “War ” we are treated to a number of terrific performances. “Adam Raised a Cain,” reborn in 1988, offers a weighty lead vocal, including a fresh exchange with Nils towards the end. Bruce’s guitar work at the top of “Adam” and later in the solo are fiery, and the horns raise the drama to arena level. “Two Faces” is thoughtfully rendered and thematically resonant, as is “Cover Me”: Bruce dips into lyrics from the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” declaring “I need a little shelter now,” “It’s just a kiss away,” and his own revealing improvisation, “I can’t see no sunshine.” Not surprisingly given the circumstances we get an especially earnest “Brilliant Disguise,” too.

The cracking first set ends with another epic “Born in the U.S.A.,” played at a seemingly pacier tempo and loaded with emotive guitar soloing, synthesizer pitch-wheel bending, and a nifty bit of Max Weinberg cymbal pinging between channels as Bruce’s voice rises to sing, “I’ve got a picture of him in her arms.”

The second set keeps pace with the first, and while there are no surprises per se (those are still to come), the band is playing at their 1988 peak. For highlights, first among equals is “Walk Like a Man,” making its second full-band appearance in the Archive series and sounding more vivid and widescreen than the version captured in Detroit in March. The arrangement features what might be the best work by the Horns of Love of the entire tour. While everyone in the band is playing brilliantly, Garry Tallent’s bass gives the song a lush bed on which the other instrumentation flourishes. It’s a stunner.

The encores on the 1988 tour were consistently strong, and the addition of “Have Love, Will Travel” by The Sonics delightfully balances the Memphis soul of “Raise Your Hand” and “Sweet Soul Music” with Northwest garage rock. “Have Love” is another song that graduated from the encore to the main set, and for the night’s most special moment, Bruce played that hand again. 

“I’m gonna do a song now that’s a favorite song of mine,” he says. “I don’t sing it as good as the guy that originally sang it, but I like it a lot, and this is my night in the big room. I just love this song.”

What follows is a majestic, reverent, and perfectly arranged rendition of Roy Oribson’s “Crying.” Optimized for his vocal range, the performance features Springsteen singing with stunning control. What Orbison brings the song in soaring, operatic notes, Bruce makes up for with power and conviction. What a treat to add it to the master song list of the Live Archive series.

It’s no surprise that Bruce was feeling triumphant at the end of the night, and his band commemorates the moment in the most Big Apple way possible, playing an instrumental “New York, New York” for his walk-off music.

“New York, New York” was the last song of the 5/16/88 show, but it isn’t the final track on this release. We’re gifted a glimpse into those legendary soundtracks with the inclusion of “In Dreams,” recorded pre-show.

Bruce’s Orbison bonafides were well established even before participating in the television tribute special A Black and White Night, shot in September 1987. He had explored The Big O’s music in soundchecks for weeks leading up to New York City. The only E Street Band performances of “Crying” appeared during this MSG run, but “In Dreams” never even made it to the show. 

The Archive has been fortunate to feature two other songs from 1988 soundchecks, “For You Love” from 5/23 and “Reason to Believe” from 3/28. But “In Dreams,” perhaps the most mystical song in the Orbison canon, feels most like we’ve snuck into the venue early and heard something only intended for the musicians on stage. What a treat. When “In Dreams” finishes, Bruce offers a self-review of their performance that I won’t spoil, but you’re sure to smile as I did. 

The first night at Madison Square Garden in 1988 is an outstanding Tunnel of Love performance and, better still, a previously unheard and worthy homage to one of the biggest musical influences in Springsteen’s career.

LISTEN NOW: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY – May 16, 1988

nugs.net Expands Live Concert Recording Catalog with Top Artists

nugs.net is thrilled to announce exciting new additions to its catalog of live concert recordings.

Over the past two decades, pioneer live music streaming platform nugs.net has evolved into the leading source for official live concert recordings from the largest touring artists in the world. With an ever-expanding digital archive of more than 25,000 concerts and hundreds of on-demand videos of full shows from marquee acts like Metallica, Pearl Jam, The Rolling Stones, Dead & Company, and Phish, nugs.net provides music fans VIP access to their favorite concerts anytime, anywhere. Throughout April, nugs.net is adding an iconic, genre-spanning collection of new artists and live concert recordings to their massive, unrivaled streaming library, including an epic selection of new and archival shows from Jack White, DARKSIDE, Pixies and more. 

Jack White’s Supply Chain Issues Tour Concert Audio

On the heels of releasing his eagerly awaited new album, FEAR OF THE DAWN, Jack White kicked off his Supply Chain Issues Tour last week with two sold-out shows at Detroit’s Masonic Temple Theatre. The tour, which features White’s first headline shows in four years, will make 50+ stops across North America, Europe, and the United Kingdom through late August. In partnership with nugs.net, White will offer official soundboard audio from every stop on the tour, available to stream exclusively via nugs.net here: nugs.net/jackwhite. Of the new partnership, Third Man Records co-founder Ben Blackwell shares, “While we’ve been recording all Jack White live shows for years, only now did it finally feel right to release all of them quickly after the performance. And with nugs.net as our partner…we couldn’t be happier with the results.”

Six Epic Sets from Psychedelic Duo DARKSIDE

Beginning today, music fans around the globe can enjoy full-length concerts from DARKSIDE, the psychedelic collaboration between electronic producer Nicolas Jaar and guitarist Dave Harrington, who have partnered with nugs.net to bring two visually driven, atmospheric performances, as well as official soundboard audio from five epic concerts to the platform’s extensive streaming catalog for the first time. Watch DARKSIDE’s intimate sunset show overlooking the Manhattan skyline, Psychic Live set at Stereolux in Nantes, and more streaming exclusively on nugs.net here: nugs.net/DARKSIDE.

26 Pixies Archive Concert Recordings

Alt-rock icons Pixies also join nugs.net this month. 26 full-length concerts from the archives, including recordings from 1991 and the band’s 2004 reunion tour, will be available to stream on April 21 at nugs.net/thepixies. All shows feature the band’s original lineup: frontman Black Francis, guitarist Joey Santiago, bassist Kim Deal, and drummer David Lovering. Highlights include Pixies’ first show in 11 years at the intimate Fine Line in Minneapolis, a performance on the mainstage at Coachella, and a 2004 sold-out, four-night run at Brixton Academy in London. 

Immersive 360 Reality Audio

Throughout the month, nugs.net will continue to bring the live concert experience to music lovers worldwide. Stream iconic performances and classic albums by David Bowie, Pink Floyd, and Janis Joplin in immersive 360 Reality Audio, which brings the electricity of live music and the energy of a crowd to you like never before. Experience exclusive live recordings from the Bruce Springsteen Archives, like The Roxy ’75, as if you were in the room with the E Street Band on the Born to Run Tour. Listen to the classic Jefferson Airplane Volunteers album the way it sounded in the studio, and hear David Gilmour play “Wish You Were Here” with the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra like you’re in the crowd of 50,000 fans. For more information and to start listening visit: try.nugs.net/360.

Listen to Bowie, Springsteen, and More in Immersive 360 Reality Audio

Start listening in 360 Reality Audio.

nugs.net is excited to stream selected shows and albums in immersive 360 Reality Audio, which brings the electricity of live music and the energy of a crowd to you like never before. Using spatial audio technology, 360 Reality Audio captures vocals, instruments, and the sounds of a live audience and brings them to you in spherical sound. 

Stream iconic performances and classic albums by David Bowie, Pink Floyd, and Janis Joplin on the nugs.net app. Experience exclusive live recordings from the Bruce Springsteen Archives, like The Roxy ’75, as if you were in the room with the E Street Band on the Born to Run Tour. Listen to the classic Jefferson Airplane Volunteers album the way it sounded in the studio, and hear David Gilmour play “Wish You Were Here” with the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra like you’re in the crowd of 50,000 fans. 

Each recording is also streaming in stereo for our Premium subscribers, and select concert videos have been newly mixed with 360 Reality Audio sound for the first time ever and are now streaming on demand.

Start listening on the nugs.net mobile app now with a free 30-day HiFi Tier trial subscription, and stay tuned for more content in 360 Reality Audio coming soon.

Stream Bruce Springsteen in Berlin from 1993

Bruce Springsteen

LISTEN NOW: Waldbühne, Berlin, Germany – May 14, 1993

By Erik Flannigan

Though Springsteen’s 1992-93 World Tour ran a full calendar year, his first outing sans E Street Band carried the sense of a perpetual work in progress for good reason.

Bruce had not one but two albums’ worth of material to integrate from Human Touch and Lucky Town; a challenging balance to strike between familiar and new material; and a bigger, rootsy-er band attempting to hold its own in the shadow of E Street, but from which he could summon the magical vocal power of a gospel choir. As my friend Aaron would say, a tricky biscuit.

The previous Archive release from this tour, Boston 12/13/92, featured 16 songs from the new companion albums. Five months later in Berlin, the main set shifted significantly, as nine songs from Human Touch and Lucky Town are joined by 14 “classics” (six culled from Born in the U.S.A.), five covers, plus a four-song acoustic appetizer to open the show, a unique design feature of the European gigs.

What the result lacks in narrative cohesion it makes up for in distinct, compelling moments as Bruce—alone, and with his new (save for Roy Bittan) companions—walks an alternate musical path through it all. Berlin 5/14/93 serves as an exemplar of the unique period that was Europe ’93.

As the lone keyboard player on the 1992-93 tour, Bittan does a lot of heavy lifting. A greater-than-usual reliance on synthesizers, primarily via Roy’s Yamaha DX7 (the first widely adopted digital synth), is akin to Max Weinberg’s drum triggers on the back half of the Born in the U.S.A. tour.

Both belong to a specific place and time in the sonic landscape, because they are so prominent in the live mix of their respective eras, they can feel obtrusive by today’s standards. If you find yourself bumping on Roy’s DX7, recalibrate your modern ears—this is the sound of 1992-93.

Berlin opens with something we can all agree on: a wonderful, four-song acoustic set that commences with the Christic Institute arrangements of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and “Adam Raised a Cain.” How thrilling it must have been to see these solo performances in their striking new renditions, and Bruce was just getting started.

The world premiere of “Satan’s Jeweled Crown” follows, with Bruce joined by the backup singers who emphasize the church-pew side of the “country-gospel song” first popularized by the Louvin Brothers. The stately hymn only appeared in the set six times, five in Europe in 1993, making this a rare and welcome addition to the Live Archive series.

If those three tunes to start weren’t enough, how about the shorts-soiling inclusion of unreleased-at-the-time BIUSA outtake “This Hard Land”? When met with a knowing cheer, Bruce responds, “Yeah, you bought the bootlegs. You shouldn’t have done it.” The song was still two years away from its official release on Greatest Hits In 1995, so for hardcore fans, “This Hard Land” in the show was a holy grail.

As noted above, Springsteen taps his classic catalog further in Berlin than he did in 1992, with some tracks translating off E Street more successfully than others. The choir vocals of the backup singers bring a soulful sweetness to songs like “Hungry Heart” and “Working on the Highway.” The 1992-93 band always nails “Badlands” and does here, too.

A spare take of “The River,” which the audience greets with an enormous cheer, is the vocal highlight. Bruce sings it fresh, poignant, and true above Bittan’s gorgeous piano. The peak comes with the trio of “Downbound Train,” “Because the Night,” and “Brilliant Disguise.” The last of these offers unexpectedly intriguing guitar from Shane Fontayne, while Bruce himself tears off a steamy solo in “Because the Night,” which also gains gravitas from the vocalists.

But there’s no mistaking the rise in Bruce’s enthusiasm when he moves from songs like “Atlantic City” and “My Hometown” to Human Touch/Lucky Town material like “Man’s Job” and “Leap of Faith.” Vocal inflection and energy signal his commitment, and, to a song, the recent additions have strong outings in Berlin, with fine performances of “Better Days,” “Lucky Town,” “Human Touch,” and the elegiac, underrated encore high point, “My Beautiful Reward.”

The one place where old and new combine to stirring effect is the denouement coupling of “Souls of the Departed” and “Born in the U.S.A.,” framed by several Jimi Hendrix-inspired bars of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” With Roy Bittan triggering news soundbites of troubles, domestic and foreign, these parallel stories of the human toll taken by such conflicts form one seamless, biting statement that lands harder than anything else in the show.

Bruce’s choice of covers also confers deep resonance on the Berlin performance. The aforementioned “Satan’s Jeweled Crown” is a God-fearing, serious tune and sits right at the intersection of the church and the Opry. “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and “Rockin’ All Over the World” are familiar fare, yet always welcome, especially with big gospel voices adding layers of soul. Those voices come up even bigger on Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross,” presented in straightforward and powerful fashion. It was one of the consistent highlights of these 1993 concerts.

Speaking of resurrections, after four sterling performances on 1988’s Tunnel of Love Express Tour, Springsteen brought “Across the Borderline” back into four 1993 setlists, the last of which was Berlin. The song is most closely associated with Ry Cooder, who wrote it with John Hiatt and Jim Dickson. Like Tom Waits’ “Jersey Girl,” “Across the Borderline” is a leading candidate for the most Springsteen-esque song Bruce has covered but didn’t write. The Berlin version is blessed with the heartfelt vocals of Gia Ciambotti, Carol Dennis, Cleopatra Kennedy, Bobby King, and Angel Rogers, who bring majesty to a predominantly synthesizer- and guitar-led arrangement.

Such 1993 highpoints surely inspired Springsteen to combine the best of both worlds in 2012 as the Wrecking Ball tour brought E Street Band and E Street Choir together. In fact, “Many Rivers to Cross” featured in the last warm-up gig in Austin before the start of the proper Wrecking Ball tour.

Work-in-progress or not, the 1993 European tour, as captured on a May night in Berlin, remains a fascinating exploration of Bruce’s wide, musical aperture, especially when seen as the antecedent for some of what was to come.

TONIGHT’S GONNA BE EVERYTHING THAT I SAID

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, OH, November 10, 2009

By Erik Flannigan

The start-to-finish performance of an album in concert, despite having so much in common with the music format so many of us were weaned on, is a far different animal than a listening session with the LP or CD itself.

Great concerts thrive on internal mechanics, intentional peaks and valleys that, when done well, take the audience on a journey. Bruce Springsteen famously crafts that journey through setlist choices, dialing in the dynamics that make his concerts so electrifying, while also creating a narrative arc—more pronounced on some tours than others, but always present in some form—from the opening song to the encore closer.

Playing an album like Born to Run from start to finish inside a concert runs the risk of disrupting that journey. For many Springsteen aficionados, some of his most famous songs, “Thunder Road” and “Born to Run” in particular, have become more associated with their historic places in the set than their slots in the album sequence.

Perhaps that’s precisely what makes hearing Born to Run performed front to back in Cleveland so interesting. Relieved of now-familiar in-concert roles and restored to their original context, the songs of Born to Run shift tone. Their storytelling qualities rise as their anthemic, crowd-pleasing function is stripped. It would go too far to say it’s like hearing the music anew, but a chance for reappreciation? Absolutely.

Though recordings from 2014 have been available, Cleveland 11/10/09 brings the album performance of Born to Run to the Live Archive series for the first time—in the context of the Working on a Dream tour, when he began this particular trick. Springsteen opens the show in a familiar fashion for this part of the 2009 tour, with the defiant statement of “Wrecking Ball,” followed by an edgy “Prove It All Night.” The latter is marked by two fine guitar solos, lively Max Weinberg drum fills, and an emphatic vocal turn from Stevie Van Zandt that buoys Springsteen’s own performance.

That dynamic duo slides into “Hungry Heart,” and the Cleveland boys (and girls) are well prepared to sing verse one with gusto. That word also suits “Working on a Dream,” which Bruce and the band play with full conviction. (Does anyone else think of the Beach Boys’ earworm “Kokomo” when they hear “Working on a Dream”?) Jon Altschiller unpacks each player in the mix, letting otherwise background parts like Clarence Clemons’ rich baritone sax shine through. 

Then the eight-song show-within-a-show arrives. ”[We wanted to do] “something special…for the fans towards this last stretch [of the tour],” says Bruce, “so we’ve been playing some of our albums.” He goes on to explain that after failing to break through commercially with his first two LPs, and sensing he had but one more swing at the plate in 1975, “this was the album where we started a lifelong conversation with most of you.”

WIth that, “Thunder Road” and our story begins. It’s been theorized that Born to Run was originally meant to depict a single day from bright morning to the dark of night, and elements of that come through in this setting. “Thunder Road” in Cleveland is on the sprightly side, feeling more like a beginning than a culmination as it is so often in concert. 

High spirits and comradery ensue via “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out,” which remains a celebration of the band itself. Curt Ramm was a returning special guest for this portion of the tour (presaging the full horn section to come in 2012), and his trumpet adds extra juice to the song’s indelible horn hook. “Night” arrives, and we’re moving quickly through side one, with The Big Man leading the way in a fine rendition. Kudos to Charlie Giordano, too, who wraps sinewy organ and chiming glockenspiel around the band’s wall of sound.

The aforementioned shift from peak to valley hits with “Backstreets.” Van Zandt teases out lovely licks in the intro, and a sublime version follows. It may not be realistic for Bruce, at 60 years old, to tap the emotions of his mid-20s self, but his vocals in Cleveland carry gravitas. The mid-song interlude that was once filled by “Sad Eyes” finds Bruce improvising vocally and reprising lines like “you’re an angel on my chest” to beautiful, meditative effect. 

Release comes with “Born to Run,” which delivers hope and elation, however fleeting, to the narrative. Hearing the song come an otherwise odd ninth in the show doesn’t feel as disorienting as it would outside of the album context. As much of an anthem as “Born to Run” has become, standing on its own, it holds a vital place among these eight songs.

For whatever reason, “She’s the One” feels ever so slightly lost, but focus is restored with the pairing of “Meeting Across the River” and “Jungleland.” The album’s least-played track, “Meeting” never established a place in Springsteen’s live shows, having been played only 70 or so times. Curt Ramm’s majestic trumpet is the focal point of the gorgeous performance. Listen for Bruce’s voice crack emotionally as he sings, “It’ll look like you’re carrying a friend.” 

It’s a pleasure to hear “Meeting Across the River” playing its role as the narrative companion to “Jungleland,” and the album-closer takes the handoff and soars. Every member of E Street is locked in, none more so than The Big Man. He takes his famous solo with aplomb and steals this movie’s epic final scene. Curtain.

What follows after Born to Run, to the end of the night, is more WOAD tour excellence, highlighted by the welcome inclusions of the delightfully reworked “Red Headed Woman,” a trumpet-tinged “Pink Cadillac” (why isn’t this song performed more often?), and the coup de grâce, “Back in Your Arms.”

In the song’s rare live appearances, “Back in Your Arms” typically opens with Springsteen asking the audience who among them who has blown it, throwing away love they should have cherished. There’s little doubt he’s speaking from personal experience. In Cleveland, his preamble ends with a spoken-sung line that builds to eventually implore, “Please please please let me have one more chance to show the love I feel in my heart for you.” “Back in Your Arms” has been played only 23 times, so each performance of the song is a special treat, but this one just might be first among equals.

With love on his mind, lost or otherwise, Bruce adds “Can’t Help Falling in Love” to the Cleveland encore, then “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher” and “Rosalita,” both featuring Ramm on trumpet, to end the journey as he always does: on just the right note. A great album and a great show, all wrapped up in one great night.

Tonight I Am Going To Be Playing For All Of The Stakes

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

Arrowhead Pond Of  Anaheim, Anaheim, CA, May 22, 2000

By Erik Flannigan

We often cite the Reunion tour as a demarcation between the “classic” and “modern” Springsteen eras. Yet this April already marks 23 years since the start of the Reunion tour in Barcelona. Do the math, and the E Street Band’s return in 1999 is inching ever closer to being the midpoint of their overall career—a line to be reached in 2026, at which point it will have been 27 years from the start of Reunion; and Reunion itself was 27 years after the band formed in 1972. Time flies.

Springsteen spoke movingly from the stage in 1999-2000 of the band’s rebirth, and we’ve seen that play out in memorable tours and albums ever since. But Reunion was a celebration of what came before and the rediscovery of the breadth and depth of the music Bruce and the E Street Band made together. That exploration manifested in setlists that saw Springsteen performing brilliant “lost” songs finally released on Tracks in 1998, revisiting deep catalog cuts unplayed in decades, changing up the arrangements of familiar material, and still throwing in the occasional surprise cover version.

Anaheim 5/22/00 ticks all four boxes and serves as an exemplar of what the Reunion tour had on offer. This second night of two opens with one of those marvelous outtakes, “Take ’Em as They Come,” recorded for The River. For those of us who purchased dodgy vinyl and traded hissy cassettes of unreleased Springsteen music in the years before Tracks, it is still miraculous to hear “Take ’Em as They Come” in the show, sounding every bit the epic rocker it was always destined to be. The band is hot out of the gate, and the song’s false ending, with Garry Tallent tipping his hat to The Beatles’ “Rain” and Clarence Clemons bringing the song home with his soaring sax, is immensely satisfying.

Following that promising start we get an inviting reading of “The Promised Land,” layered with lovely piano tinkling from Roy Bittan, and a rousing “Two Hearts” that shines the spotlight on Stevie Van Zandt, whose vocal contribution represents the beating heart of the reunited band.

A nasty guitar riff launches “Darlington County,” which nearly veers into the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women” for several bars before Bruce turns the wheel back to his own Born in the U.S.A. lane. Nils shares the mic for the “Hey little girl, standing on the corner” verse, and Van Zandt’s guitar drives a crunchy, extended outro. Once keyboard-dominated, the Reunion “Darlington County” is all about axes.

Another of those lost songs, “Rendezvous,” steps to the plate, reminding us of Bruce’s pop bona fides and the magic in those chiming guitar chords. Patti Scialfa’s vocal turn helps “Rendezvous” rise, and there’s a fun twist in the arrangement towards the end when the band falls out for three bars of, “I want a rendez….I want a rendez…I want a rendezvous.” There’s a sweet section of Danny Federici organ swirls, too, as the song skips to a charming close.

Another recurring thread on the Reunion tour was the introduction of a country music influence in the arrangement of some songs, notably “Factory” (at other shows, Bruce applied similar country strokes to “Mansion on the Hill”). Nils plays lap steel guitar, Danny accordion on this new arrangement that showcases strong duet vocals from Scialfa. , and that Nashville sound extends to create a fresh intro to “Independence Day.” It’s a doleful take on The River’s father-son tale, measured and meaningful, with lovely playing from Bittan and a spirit-lifting solo from Clemons.

The center of the core Reunion tour setlist was the five-pack, and we get a solid one here: “Youngstown,” “Murder Incorporated” (another of the “I can’t believe they’re playing it” outtakes we now take for granted), “Badlands,” “Out in the Street,” and a snippet-laden “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out” that dips a toe into Curtis Mayfield’s “It’s All Right,” Al Green’s “Take Me to the River,” Springsteen’s own “Red Headed Woman,” and Sciala’s solo “Rumble Doll.” In Bruce’s sermon, this line in particular stood out: “I want to go to the river of joy and live there.” Easier said than done, as we learned in Springsteen on Broadway.

The de facto second set opens with the first E Street Band performance of Human Touch’s “Roll of the Dice,” co-written, in case you’ve forgotten, by Bruce and Roy. Steve’s call-and-response vocals and The Big Man’s sax solo lend a distinctly River feel to the E Street rendition of the song, which was surely being test-driven for inclusion in the Las Vegas show five days hence. Springsteen appears to love the result, getting his money’s worth by telling the band to go “one more time, take it around.” “Roll of the Dice” has been played but a dozen times by the ESB, making its inclusion here all the more sweet.

Rarer still is the country version of “No Surrender,” which goes even further than “Factory” with Nils on pedal-steel guitar, sparking an arrangement that is more Nashville Skyline than Nashville, and more specifically nods to Bob Dylan’s “I Want You” from Blonde on Blonde, a song Bruce covered back in 1975. The slowed down, wistful arrangement debuted in Cleveland in November 1999 and was only played seven times on Reunion.

Preview of “Meeting Across The River” – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

It was surprising to learn “Racing in the Street” was only performed 15 times on the Reunion tour, which feels low for such a significant song in the catalog. Bruce sings it a bit differently than previous tours, with a similar vocal cadence to “Thunder Road” circa 1999-2000 that takes some getting used to. Hearing it now, what comes through is a deep weariness as the narrative unfolds like a distant memory. The band sounds sublime, especially Danny, Roy, and Clarence’s rich baritone sax notes.

Time to lift spirits, and “Light of Day” does just that—all the more fun with a brief foray into The Rivieras’ “California Sun” (written by Henry Glover). Rollicking continues in the encore with a loose “Stand on It” (again featuring some twangy slide guitar), a true blue “Bobby Jean” with strong sax work from Clemons, “Born to Run,” “Thunder Road,” and the majestic “If I Should Fall Behind.”

“Land of Hope and Dreams” signals the night is coming to end, but not before one last surprise. Seemingly out of nowhere, the band breaks into Van Morrison’s “Gloria,” which starts with a suitably filthy guitar riff and full-throated vocals from Bruce. Stevie and Clarence join in to sing on the chorus. “Gloria” rolls straight into a long “Ramrod,” powered by Clarence’s fat sax notes, Max Weinberg’s big snare and hi-hat hits, and the big bottom of Garry’s bass.

Given how much fun Bruce and Stevie have singing “Ramrod,” it feels like it might never end, but after seven crunching minutes, like all good things must, “Ramrod” grinds to a close to end the evening.

Lost songs, rare tracks, new arrangements, and covers, Anaheim 5/22/00 has them all and adds yet another phase of the ever-evolving Reunion tour to the Live Archive series. 

Taking All I Can Get, No Regrets

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

Post Dome, C.W. Post College, Greenvale, NY – December 12, 1975

By Erik Flannigan

At its core, the Live Archive series functions as an aural time machine, transporting us back to performances preserved in our memories or, better still, to shows only a few fortunate souls witnessed in person.

Based on that criteria, C.W. Post College, December 12, 1975 announces itself as an exemplar of the Archive series, placing us in the best seat in the house on Long Island to experience a stupefying performance by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the height of their circa 1975 powers. 

After wrapping a four-date, European tour in November, the final month of 1975 saw Bruce play his first proper Canadian shows, return to major markets Boston and Philadelphia, and perform at small colleges and universities across the northeast. The C.W. Post concert (along with a show at Seton Hall in South Orange, NJ) was the closest gig to New York City. Judging by the rapturous audience response preserved by this recording, the Gotham fanbase made the trek to Long Island. With audio cabling laid through the auditorium leading to a truck parked outside, it was also clear to those in-the-know that the show was being recorded—one more catalyst for a heightened reaction.

The Archive series holds an embarrassment of riches from late 1975, including New Year’s Eve in Philly; the covers-laden, second London show in late November; and the conversion of Los Angeles at The Roxy in October, each noteworthy in its own way. Yet the C.W. Post performance stands out, somehow marvelously loose and inch-perfect tight at the same time. Tempos are zooming, the mood is celebratory, and if London and Los Angeles were about winning over new fans, C.W. Post aims to blow away the hardcores.

The same can be said today, as this is the Born to Run tour show you didn’t know you needed but unequivocally do. The 24-track, Plangent-Processed analog recording, newly mixed by Jon Altschiller, is 4K vivid, rich in both on-stage detail and event atmosphere. It couldn’t sound any fresher or clearer, and The Beatles Get Back parallels don’t end there.

We start in traditional 1975 tour fashion with the stark, piano-version of “Thunder Road,” a rollicking, pacey “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out,” and “Spirit in the Night.” Immediately, Stevie Van Zandt’s guitar work jumps to the fore, as he improvises atop familiar licks, adding appealing shading and variation throughout an evening where his playing is the first among equals.

“Lost in the Flood” benefits from the aforementioned looseness, as Bruce unwinds the tale a little differently, while the E Streeters enhance the drama, bursting forth after Bruce sings “Jimmy the Saint,” led by Van Zandt’s bending guitar note.

“She’s the One” opens on a long harmonica intro riding Stevie’s guitar-pedal prowess and Roy Bittan’s peerless piano. The band joins full force after the first verse and chorus, another moment of irresistible dynamics as the rhythm section makes their presence known through Garry Tallent’s deep bass and Max Weinberg’s big beat and splashing cymbal work. An outstanding version.

Following “Born to Run” comes the first-ever performance of The Animals’ “It’s My Life,” a cover that would become a cornerstone of Springsteen shows for the next 14 months.. As Brucebase writes, “In the 1987 BBC documentary Glory Days, Max Weinberg spoke about the premiere of ‘It’s My Life’ when he was asked if Bruce had ever launched into a song without telling the band what he was going to play. Max said that the band had never rehearsed the song before playing it in concert, but fortunately they all knew it.”

The recent Beatles documentary is filled with jaw-dropping moments where songs like “Get Back” and “Let It Be” spring to life in real time. Fan accounts confirm “It’s My Life” was not soundchecked at C.W. Post, yet out of thin air it begins, minus the familiar story intro. For the first minute or so, the band feels its way through, the arrangement deferential to the original but being E Streetized right before our ears. Confidence grows, and somewhere close to the middle of the song they realize, “We’ve got this.”

“It’s My Life” would go on to become a setlist staple for the next year and into early 1977. Its sentiment and the story-intro that developed around it set the stage for Bruce’s own “Independence Day.” In the 2000s, the band regularly assayed cover songs suggested by signs in the audience, but this isn’t a one-off—it’s the origin moment for one of the most significant cover versions Springsteen ever performed. Sure, any card-carrying member of the E Street Band knew The Animals’ original, but to drop “It’s My Life” in mid-set, seemingly unhearsed as Weinberg claimed and the C.W. Post arrangement supports, is audacious, joyful, and thrilling to hear.

Be that as it may, Bruce wastes little time segueing into a sprinting “Saint in the City,” and again the E Street Band flexes their musical muscles all the way through to the breakneck conclusion. A passionate “Backstreets” ensues, and one can only marvel at the level of performance by each member of the band. The spotlight justly turns to them for a long “Kitty’s Back” showcase, which finds the E Streeters in fine form not only instrumentally but vocally, too.

“Jungleland,” “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” (including Roy leading a “Hernando’s Hideaway” vamp), and “Sandy” continue an exceptional evening, each rendered as good or better than its 1975 peak. Bruce’s famous cover of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” follows. The C.W. Post performance was quickly mixed after the show and released to supportive radio stations on tape. In the early 1980s, it was officially released, first on Columbia’s In Harmony 2 children’s compilation and later as the b-side to “My Hometown.”

The new version proves to be virtually identical to the original, save for a charming mix change that lets us more clearly hear the band members’ distinct responses to Bruce’s intro, including Steve’s emphatic, “IT’S CHRISTMAS TIME!”

The encore extends with a cracking “Detroit Medley” that starts with a bang and rides some awesome chugga-chugga guitar riffing from Van Zandt. The stage then clears, and Bruce moves to the piano for a scintillating solo performance of “For You,” dedicated to his then-girlfriend Karen Darvin. The solo “For You” is a high point in the London 11/24/75 Archive release as well, but each reading is unique, and the C.W. Post version is distinctly captivating.

The band returns, and as they get set, Roy does another “name that tune” vamp, this time on “Don’t Be Cruel.” Bruce tells the boisterous crowd, “You guys are nuts!” before counting in “Sha La La.” Once more, Van Zandt lays down a blazing guitar lead and Springsteen’s high-energy vocals reflect his mood, which carries through to the closing number, “Quarter to Three.” The audience response during the song is bananas, perhaps causing the first cracks in the Post Dome that would collapse under the weight of snow in January 1978. It’s possible.

“Quarter to Three” concludes—as it must—with Bruce declaring, “I’m just a prisoner… of rock and roll!” Of that there can be no doubt, vouched for by those fortunate enough to be at C.W. Post on that December night, or the rest of us reliving the experience through this sublime addition to the Archive series.