Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band – The Darkness Tour ’78

In 1973 the band Chicago played a string of dates culminating in two nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden on 14 and 15 June. The support act was Bruce Springsteen, and the tour was, to say the least, not a happy experience for him, as Christopher Sandford relates in Springsteen: Point Blank: “Things soured in Philadelphia…’Kids were throwing rolls of toilet paper,’ says [manager, Mike] Appel. A fan bounced a basket ball off Springsteen’s piano. ‘They’re not paying attention to me,’ was his wild understatement to his manager. Something similar, or worse, happened at Madison Square Garden…Springsteen ran off stage in New York, announced he was quitting, ‘shrieked like a beast’ at Appel and burst into tears. After the recriminations had died down, he vowed he’d never play another ‘shed’ and ‘never as someone’s butt-fuck.’ ‘I told Bruce, okay, no more big venues,’ says Appel.”

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?

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

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.

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.

The earliest show on the Darkness tour to be released in the Archive Series, Berkeley 7/1/78 bristles with energy on songs like "Darkness On The Edge Of Town" and "Adam Raised A Cain," along with "Night" and "For You," both of which featured in the early months of the '78 tour. A memorable encore opens with Bruce's definitive solo-piano arrangement of "The Promise", the first live version of the song to be released from 1978, and offers only the second E Street Band performance ever of "Because The Night," with alternate lyrics.

Playing what was originally scheduled to be their final show of the tour, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band drop one of the best of 1978 at The Fox. No full recording of Atlanta 10/1/78, audience or otherwise, has ever been available. Newly mixed from Plangent Processed, multitrack masters, 10/1/78 is a previously unheard Darkness tour masterwork, from the show-opening cover of the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time" through the encore closer "Quarter To Three." In between, we're treated to "Heartbreak Hotel," "It's My Life," "Meeting Across The River," "For You," "Because The Night," "Point Blank," "Kitty's Back" and "Incident On 57th Street" across this go-out-with-a-bang, 24-song set.

Playing what was originally scheduled to be their final show of the tour, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band drop one of the best of 1978 at The Fox. No full recording of Atlanta 10/1/78, audience or otherwise, has ever been available. Newly mixed from Plangent Processed, multitrack masters, 10/1/78 is a previously unheard Darkness tour masterwork, from the show-opening cover of the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time" through the encore closer "Quarter To Three." In between, we're treated to "Heartbreak Hotel," "It's My Life," "Meeting Across The River," "For You," "Because The Night," "Point Blank," "Kitty's Back" and "Incident On 57th Street" across this go-out-with-a-bang, 24-song set.