Thundercrack (Bruce Springsteen) (LP 3885 - 3893)

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band  Live at My Father's Place in Roslyn, July 31, 1973 (Vinyl, Dol Records, 2015) ***  

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band  Live/ 1975 - 85 (Vinyl - 5 album box set, CBS Records, 1986) **** 

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band  Hammersmith Odeon, London '75 (CD, CBS Records, 2006) ***** 

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band  The Fox Theater, Atlanta, Georgia USA 30th September 1978 (3CD, Echoes Records, 2014) ****

Bruce Springsteen  Live at the Roxy Theater, Hollywood 1978 (Vinyl, Bootleg) *****

Bruce Springsteen Piece de Resistence (Vinyl, Bootleg) *****

Springsteen The E Street Band  The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts (2CD/DVD, Sony Music, 2021) *****

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band  Live in New York City (2CD, Columbia Records, 2001) *****

Bruce Springsteen  Live to Air (2CD, Bootleg, 2014) ***

Genre: Folk rock, rock

Places I remember: JB Hi Fi for most, except the bootlegs were mail orders and Live 1975/85 is from Marbecks Records.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Lost in the Flood (Live in New York)

Gear costume: Kitty's Back (Hammersmith Odeon) American Skin (41 Shots) (Live in New York)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6

Active compensatory factors: The billing is fairly shared between Bruce and the band on many of the live albums because he couldn't have done what he did without them. It was and still is a symbiotic relationship, and live is where all things Bruce became fully ALIVE!

We start in 1973 with a radio show that has songs from his first two albums. At this stage the E Street Band was Clarence, Garry, Danny, David Sancious and Vini Lopez.

It's now a historical record of where they started and it does feel a bit tentative. The sound is also a tad thin given it's a radio broadcast. Fourth of July was yet to gain its epic arrangement for instance. Spirits in the Night is sung with passion and played well by the band - a definite highlight.

The five album box set was all you could get of Bruce live in 1986, unless, like me, you had some bootlegs - which I think are far superior but more on that to come.

The box set suffers through its cherry-picked format, rather than being one concert. Again - those releases would eventually come. However, if you listen to the ten sides in one go like I've just done, it all makes sense and feels like one epic concert by the Boss and the E Street Band. 

That said, I still prefer the single concert experience and Hammersmith Odeon, London '75 delivers that and some. In 2006 Bruce presumably gave the okay for this release. Aside from the crime that it took so long, this is a very welcome double CD release.

The whole concert is outstanding and justifies the hype that Bruce disliked so much - the future of rock'n'roll was a heavy tag to place on him, but he's still going strong in 2025!

Disc two is an amazing series of climaxes - Kitty's Back (a great jazzy version) is followed by Jungleland is followed by Rosalita is followed by...OMG...Sandy!! And there are still three songs to go!! You get the picture? BTW: the shock of hearing the Jersey references being met with a London silence is just plain weird, and it must be the only place and time when Jungleland wasn't sung back to the band!

One of the strengths of this set from my pov is that it only draws on the first 3 albums - so it's tight, and it's my favourite period of the E Street Band - which helps!

Next up -1978! The Fox Theater concert was a radio broadcast. The three CDs document the concert which includes a couple of songs that he was road testing for The River. It's a good summation of Bruce and the E Streeters 1978 concert experience, but it doesn't quite have the excitement of my next two albums.

Both the Roxy (a double album) and Piece de Resistence (a triple album) are bootlegs. The sound is superb on both.

First the Roxy one - some of the songs turned up on the Live/ 1975 - 85 box set, but they are better here as they are included as part of the stand alone concert. Bruce is pretty loose - chatty and engaging with the smaller club atmosphere (capacity of 500).

Piece de Resistence is a triple vinyl bootleg that documents 'the entire 75th performance of the 1978 tour/ recorded at the Capitol Theater, Sept 19, 1978/ Passaic, New Jersey'. It comes with a stamped number on the box lid - mine is 01773. No one could ever say that Bruce and the band ever phone in a performance. This album is a five-star classic.

One of the events of 1979 was No Nukes. This was a series of concerts put on by Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE). There was a triple album (we'll get to it in the fullness of time when I finish the zeds and get onto various artists) and a film (I went with Margo and Clay - she was NOT impressed by the Bruce showmanship section!).

It took a while - 2021 - but we finally got the full Springsteen/E Street Band extravaganza on a double CD and DVD package. The set list is mainly from Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town plus Rosalita and two songs from The River which had yet to be released in 1979. 

He rips into the encores like a man possessed with The Detroit Medley and an epic Quarter to Three and then a blast of Buddy Holly to finally end things. Massive!

Live in New York is great for a few reasons: this is an expanded E Street Band with Nils, and Patti joining for a 1999-2000 reunion tour; the audience participation is a nice feature; Bruce is in great form, as is The Big Man; they're in New York; older songs and their arrangements are dusted off and shine in the new E Street sound; newer songs like Youngstown (given the full E Street Band arrangement, and American Skin (41 Shots) are brilliantly performed; they sound like they mean it and they sound like they are having fun!

And finally, Live to Air - a bootleg compilation of songs done live in a variety of contexts. The sound quality is good but it's a disparate collection of songs with and without The E Street Band.

Where do they all belong? Next up - a run-down of some compilations.

I'll take your sorrow if you want me to (Bruce Springsteen) #368 - 373

Bruce Springsteen My Hometown/ Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town (CBS, BA 3394, 1984)
Bruce Springsteen I'm On Fire/ Johnny Bye Bye (CBS, BA 223269, 1985)
Bruce Springsteen Glory Days/ Stand On It (CBS, BA 3305, 1985)
Bruce Springsteen I'm Goin' Down/ Janey, Don't You lose Heart  (CBS, BA 3350, 1985)
Bruce Springsteen War/ Merry Christmas Baby (CBS, BA 3504, 1986)
Bruce Springsteen War; Merry Christmas Baby/ Incident On 57th Street (CBS 12", 6501936, 1986)

This final selection of six Springsteen singles in my collection takes in just 3 years.

Born In The U.S.A. again supplies all of the A sides apart from War (which came from a five album set of live material released in 1986).

Scooter and the Big Man - bustin' the city in half.

The phrase I'm on fire sums it up as Bruce serves up a variety of styles, all effortlessly presented by the amazingly adaptable E Street Band.

There's the slow burn of I'm On Fire (ha ha); the nostalgic Glory Days (Miami Steve was leaving so this may have prompted the looking back that features in some songs); the social comment of My Hometown; and the rebuffed sexual overtures of I'm Goin' Down.

It all sounds pretty effortless (in a good way). 

Then there's the live take of War (What Is It Good For) - btw - that was Tolstoy's original title for his epic novel War And Peace.

In the eighties it sounded pretty current and heartfelt even. To my mind, it's aged a bit as a sentiment but the performance is still on the money.

Hidden gems: None of these B sides appeared on the parent albums - further evidence of Bruce's strict quality control and the fact that he had so much quality productivity going on.

Pick of the bunch may be Janey... but Johnny Bye Bye is pretty cool as well, then again the Christmas songs are fab. Maybe it's Stand On It - a rave up?

Actually they're all great!!

Deep in the dark forest (Bruce Springsteen) #362 - 367

Bruce Springsteen Born In The U.S.A./ Shut Out The Light (CBS, BA 223245, 1984)
Bruce Springsteen Born In The U.S.A. (Freedom mix)/ Born In The U.S.A. (Dub); Born In The U.S.A. (Radio)  (CBS 12", BA 223245, 1984)
Bruce Springsteen Dancing In The Dark/ Pink Cadillac (CBS, BA 223189, 1984)
Bruce Springsteen Dancing In The Dark (Blaster mix)/ Dancing In The Dark  (Radio); Dancing In The Dark  (Dub)  (CBS 12", BA 12093, 1984)
Bruce Springsteen Cover Me/ Jersey Girl (CBS, BA 223223, 1984)
Bruce Springsteen Cover Me (Undercover mix); Cover Me (Dub 1)/ Cover Me (Radio); Cover Me (Dub 2) (CBS 12", BA 12100, 1984)

Broooce was one of the mega selling four of 1984 (the year of Thriller, the Footloose soundtrack and Prince's Purple Rain).

Each of these three songs came from the Born In The U.S.A. album and got the full multi-mix treatment, as well as having non album interest on the B sides (more of that in hidden gems).

The Boss was everywhere in 1984 and one of those everywheres was MTV with that iconic impassioned lip sinc to Born In The U.S.A.

One from the 'Americans don't get irony' file: this is clearly a song about nowhere to run and nowhere to go, even though it's wrapped in an American flag on the cover. It's amazing that Ronald Raygunz thought it would make a snazzy campaign song. DOH!!!!

It packed a wallop then and its power is not too diminished with time. Bruce was as serious as a heart attack and is still razor relevant to life for many in 2015 - he ain't called The Boss fer nuttin!! 

[Those comments are directed mainly to the 7 inch single version - the one we all know and love. Remixes don't ever do much for me - I've mentioned this before.]

Dancing In The Dark is not one of my personal favourites - there's that video with Courtney Cox for a start and it's all a little too airbrushed and contrived for my liking. The big radio hit!

Cover me is along the same lines as DITD - still has that eighties pop gloss.

Hidden gems: Bruce's B sides usually contained amazing songs that somehow never made the albums. Either that or he gave them away to other artists (Pink Cadillac went to Aretha frinstance). Amazing. The things he never released (like on Tracks) would have been someone else's career!

Shut Out The Light is a great song - way better than some of the things on the album (and it's a great album).

Jersey Girl is, of course, the Tom Waits song. I guarantee loads of people hear this and immediately assume it's a Bruce song. It fits like a glove.

The B side remixes are never less that interesting but not essential. Mighty Max comes to the fore on the dub versions in particular. He brings the power (night after night after night after night after...). Warning: unfortunately the eighties production tricks are unleashed by the remixers so they've dated quite a bit.

I took a wrong turn and I just kept going (Bruce Springsteen) #360-361

Bruce Springsteen Because The Night; Racing In The Streets/ Because The Night (Patti Smith); The Promise (Bootleg, 1978)
Bruce Springsteen Hungry Heart/ Held Up Without A Gun (CBS, BA 222748, 1980)

The Springsteen section of my vinyl singles collection starts with stuff prior to the Born In The U.S.A. blockbuster in 1984.

While Born To Run (the song blasted out of my radio in 1975) was my first point of contact, I didn't buy any Springsteen singles until this bootleg featuring material from the Darkness On The Edge Of Town sessions.

The single is actually titled Outside The Seven-Eleven Store and is a tiny taster of what went on in the murky world of Springsteen bootlegs in 1978.

My prized triple bootleg album Piece de Resistance set (Sept 19, 1978 at Passaic, New Jersey) and double Live at The Roxy, Hollywood (July 7, 1978) were also bought about the same time as this single.

I've already done an entry a few posts ago on Because The Night- not one of my favourite Smith or Springsteen moments. 

Hungry Heart was a strong single in 1980. Apparently Bruce intended it as a gift to The Ramones but his manager got him to change his mind. Hard to hear it as a Ramones song.

Parent album The River was a sprawling double and Hungry Heart, despite the dour fatalistic subject matter (father abandons his family for goodness sake!) it's a bright and bouncy song; a good choice for a single.

Hidden gems: The reason I bought Hungry Heart was for the B side - a song that didn't appear on The River. Weighing it at 1 min and change - it's a fast blast of Bruce branded energetic thrash.

The Promise is now available on the CD package (also called The Promise) which collects a vast amount on previously unreleased material from those sessions.

[A word about the video - I tried to find a good version with the E Street Band but sadly the sound quality is superior on this version - Bruce proving he's human with this mid career dalliance with non E-streeters]

I'm just a prisoner of rock'n'roll (Scooter and The Big Man)

The No Nukes triple live album from 1979 is a wonderful collection which in retrospect was the last musical gasp of the 60s/70s hippy counter culture movement. When the big stars came out to play after this they did so for Saint Bob and for starving Africans but there was no live album at all!

No nuclear energy/weapons is a really hippy cause, and by the mid Live Aid eighties the music business was a different corporate beast.

The album is a real period piece - no one is going to sing songs like Jesse Colin Young's Get Together or Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' during an event like this again without a huge dollop of cynicism being attached to it.

I do love this album though. The highlights are many and evenly distributed over the six sides:

• Bonnie Raitt
• Jackson Browne
• Raydio
• James Taylor with and without The Doobie Brothers
• Bruce Springsteen and The E Street band

all turn in amazing performances and the lowlights are few:

• Chaka Khan
• Jesse Colin Young's aforementioned naive Get Together

I remember going to see the film of the concert with friends who were really turned off by the Springsteen section - the James Brownisms turned them off but I loved his performance.

Scooter's searching for his group... and the Big Man joined the band (Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band)

Walked in the Virgin Megastore at Villaggio (Doha) and the first thing I see in a huge cacophony of products (T shirts, magazines, CDs, DVDs, stereo gear, TVs, phones, books etc) is a book. Seriously - the first thing!

It's BIG MAN by Clarence Clemons and Don Reo (yes it upper case glory). The cover picture is sublime - Clarence smiling backstage in his BIG MAN persona (black hat, black shades, dreads, big shoes...and his sax).

I walked up to it (or maybe it walked up to me). I reached for it (or maybe it reached out to me). I picked it up (it seemed to glow and grow BIGGER in size). I opened the cover to the promised foreward by Bruce Springsteen. The words read like they were ripped from the gospel of the ministry of music.

I'm 222 pages in (read over two days in a rush) and if you have ever been touched by the magic of The Boss (aka Scooter) or just music in general then you must read it. It's worth it for the hilarious bullshit story of Frank Sinatra wanting to record Born to Run alone.

I love the story of how Bruce named the band too. Who knew?

If you want more of the Big Man - try his website. http://www.clarenceclemons.com/

And to leave you - here's the awesome E Streeters doing some self-mythologising!Two from '75 (my first year in thrall). Big Man joined the band indeed!! Rosie is my favourite Springsteen song!