Author: Erik Flannigan

Out today is the latest release from The Live Archive Series, the final night of the first leg of the Born to Run Tour. Read archivist Erik Flannigan’s essay on the storied night in Toronto, then order your copy today or stream it exclusively in the nugs app:

You Better Not Pout, I’m Telling You Why

ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen, Seneca Field House, Toronto, ON December 21, 1975

By Erik Flannigan

To all but a few misanthropes among us, the Live Archive series has been received as the bounty of riches it is. Each installment is an audio time machine that transports us back to specific, historic performances in Bruce Springsteen’s career. It bears repeating that, for those who traded iffy live tapes for decades, the idea that nearly 100 vintage multitrack recordings would be released for sale was unimaginable back in the day. It’s especially true when factoring in the release of every show of a current tour. If dreams came true, well wouldn’t that be nice?

Regardless of era, each Archive release has its distinct merits, but performances from Springsteen’s climb up the mountain (contrasted with those played at the career summit) offer extra appeal.

That’s what we get to hear on Toronto, December 21, 1975. This previously unheard, let alone unreleased 49-year-old recording is one of the more transporting in the series to date. From inside the Field House at Seneca College, this new audio evidence strongly suggests nary a person in attendance had ever seen Springsteen before. 

Per Brucebase, the Toronto show was originally slated for a 1,000 seat venue, then bumped twice to bigger ones due to ticket demand, ultimately landing at the Field House. The 3,000 Bruce curious who assembled that frigid evening applaud with well-mannered respect between songs but remain uncannily quiet otherwise as they witness the sublime performance unfolding in front of them. Case in point: when Bruce hits his first hard stop before introducing the band in “Rosalita,” the smattering of applause makes clear the crowd has no clue how to react.

The Archive release of Berkeley Community Theatre July 1, 1978 conveyed a similar sense of aural intimacy and audience respect, but with Toronto, the “You Are There As It Happens” element sounds even more pronounced.

The Toronto concert was originally recorded to 16-track, two-inch master tapes which were Plangent Process transferred just a few weeks ago and newly mixed by Jon Altschiller. That work, combined with the sonic byproduct of an unusually polite Ontario crowd, yields a close-up, wide stereo recording rich with detail. When A/V aficionados talk about OLED TV screens, they say “the blacks are so black.” The equivalent with the Toronto audio is “the silences are so silent.”

The aforementioned notion of Springsteen’s climb up the mountain applies to several factors in a performance, like whether he’s playing to audiences that need convincing, which is surely the case in Toronto. Another is that this line-up of the E Street Band with Stevie Van Zandt, Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg only had five months together under their belts. While they are undeniably locked into each other, their parts aren’t as fixed as they would eventually become, so there’s a fresh, in-the-moment feeling to the band’s playing throughout the Toronto set.

Given the crowd vibe, the night begins modestly, with Bruce and Roy performing the slow piano version of “Thunder Road” that opened most Born to Run tour concerts in 1975. It’s worth reminding ourselves that this now-familiar arrangement must have been an enormous surprise to hear if all you knew was the album version.

A rousing “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and “Spirit in the Night” (both loaded with tasty licks from Van Zandt) follow and the audience shows signs of beginning to absorb what they are witnessing, particularly after “Spirit.” The band is sharp from the jump and while Bruce’s otherwise strong vocals carry a hint of him holding back ever so slightly, something shifts in “Lost in the Flood.”

Tension builds organically through the second verse, and when Bruce sings “The kids call him Jimmy the Saint,” Van Zandt unleashes a wicked guitar trill, the rest of the band smashes in, and the song bursts open. Stevie’s guitar continues to sparkle throughout and Springsteen’s vocal restraint vanishes in favor of passion and intent. When “Lost in the Flood” quiets down again for Bittan’s piano outro, the cliche “you can hear a pin drop” has never been more accurate.

“She’s the One” picks up where “Lost in the Flood” took off, as the audience claps along to Bruce’s harmonica over Weinberg’s Bo Diddley beat. Later, Springsteen’s own guitar work matches Van Zandt’s stride for stride in this outstanding reading that’s met with the biggest applause of the night so far. Sensing he may have cracked the code, Springsteen sings “Born to Run” with fervor you can hear in the very first utterance of “tramps LIKE us.”

Off those peaks, “Pretty Flamingo” cools things down for 14 languid, enchanting minutes that include two storytelling patches. The first starts in familiar territory as Bruce recounts sitting with Steve on the porch day after day watching a pretty girl walk by on her way home from work. In this version, however, they are joined by Bruce’s dad.

“My father was home a lot. He was the kind of guy, he would get up in the morning — well, he’d wake up and decide if he was gonna get up. And if he felt like going to work, he’d go. If not, he’d stay around home…. He was always watching what I was doing, keeping his eye on me. He thought I was always getting into all kinds of trouble and stuff. He figured that was more his job to stay home and make sure I was cool. So he’d be sitting out there with us on the porch.”

Springsteen goes on to recall buying a guitar at Western Auto and a bicycling Clarence Clemons “riding by with no hands, playing the saxophone,” all in an effort to impress the woman strolling by each day. It’s a fun variation on the familiar tale, as is a second chapter later in the song about hiring a detective agency only to realize his sister could have been his ideal ambassador.

Guitars return to the spotlight for “Saint in the City” and once again the clarity of the Toronto recording shines as the guitarists swap licks across the stereo field, with Bruce in the center and Stevie on the right. As if the musicianship wasn’t already showing out, “Kitty’s Back” gives each member of the band a moment. Listen for Bruce’s guitar solo at 11:14 giving a nod to Van Morrison’s “Moondance.”

An immense “Jungleland” with still more magic moments from Van Zandt and Clemons carries the show’s denouement and “Rosalita” takes the set home. While the audience was disoriented in the latter’s first break, their applause at the end makes it clear they figured it out.

“Sandy” starts the encore evocatively, with Clemons’ low baritone sax underpinning Danny Federici’s accordion in a gorgeous take. It’s fun to hear a version of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” that’s contemporary to the officially released version from Greenvale, New York, recorded nine days prior. While the arrangement is the same for both, the introductions are charmingly different (and the ensuing banter is, too). 

After “Detroit Medley,” the now-sustained audience response is joined by cheers and whistles: by this point we’ve witnessed Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band completely win over the crowd. And he’s not done yet.

In what might be the high point of the evening, Springsteen returns for a solemn solo piano “For You.” His performance delivers unique line readings and vocal dynamics, especially in the final verse and chorus which are riveting. Bruce also alters the pivotal line in the bridge, singing, “Remember how I kept you waiting, when it was FINALLY my turn to be the god?” “Quarter to Three” ends the evening with a buzz that surely lingered for all 3,000 Torontonians.

Born to Run, both album and tour, turn 50 years old in 2025. It was a time when Bruce’s future career wasn’t guaranteed, but performances like Toronto were the occasions where the curious became the converted.

---

Toronto 1975 was painstakingly transferred from the original 2″ master tapes at Sonicraft utilizing the Plangent Processes playback system, and mixed and mastered from the original 16 track recording at Chiller Sound earlier this month. CDs, hi-res downloads, DSD128 files, and MP3s are now available. You an also stream this show now along with 100 other releases from the Springtseen Archive Series exclusively with a nugs subscription – now 50% Off for a limited time!

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.”

Preview of “Sweet Little Sixteen” – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

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.

---

Enjoy unlimited access to all the exclusive Bruce Springsteen archival releases and more from your favorite artists by subscribing to nugs now.

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.

Preview of “Tom Joad” by Bruce Springsteen in Akron, OH 1996

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

---

Enjoy unlimited access to all the exclusive Bruce Springsteen archival releases, and more from your favorite artists by subscribing to nugs now.

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.

---

Stream this show, along with hundreds more archival Bruce Springsteen shows with a 7-day free trial. Explore the Bruce Springsteen catalog and start your free trial here.