Bruce Brendan Byrne

Summer Tour ’81 was a U.S. victory lap that marked Springsteen’s triumphant return from Europe. It began with the christening of the brand new Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, NJ. Recorded July 9, Brendan Byrne 1981 is the final show of the six-night stand and catches Bruce and the band at a River tour performance peak. The set list mixes riveting new songs and a summer Shore party including “Follow That Dream,” “Trapped,” “Johnny Bye Bye,” “The Ties That Bind,” “Sherry Darling” “Jersey Girl” the “Detroit Medley” featuring “Shake” and “Sock It To Me, Baby,” plus a guest appearance by Gary U.S. Bonds for “This Little Girl” and “Jolé Blon.”

“Hit! I wrote a hit last night!” –Bruce Springsteen to Roy Bittan, as told by Peter Ames Carlin

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?

The first night of a 10 night stand at Brendan Byrne Arena at The Meadowlands in New Jersey, 8/5/84 is the first complete recording officially released from Bruce Springsteen’s historic Born In The U.S.A. Tour. This was the E Street Band’s first tour with Nils Lofgren on guitar (Stevie Van Zandt had left the band) and Patti Scialfa on vocals and percussion. As with the popular Nassau ’80 archive release, Meadowlands ’84 was recorded live with the Record Plant Remote Truck by Toby Scott, and the master analog multitrack reels were transferred at Sonicraft and restored via The Plangent Process for maximum audio fidelity. Toby Scott mixed the show for this release in April 2015. The high quality recordings of this show prompted us to offer this release in DSD, an additional high resolution format that’s 64 times the resolution of a standard CD.

The Live Series: Songs of Summer is a live album by Bruce Springsteen, released in May 2020 as a digital download. The album is composed of live songs from 1975-2016 at various different shows throughout Springsteen's career with and without the E Street Band.