Bruce Springsteen e Street Box

Winterland 12/15/78 was the final legendary radio concert on the Darkness tour. A fan favorite (bootlegged as Live In The Promised Land), this essential ’78 tour document is now available in best-ever quality, Plangent transferred from recently discovered two-track, 15 IPS master reels recorded by the Record Plant Remote Truck. Winterland 12/15/78 offers vital performances of “Prove It All Night, “She’s The One” (feat. snippets of “Mona” and “Preacher’s Daughter”), “Backstreets,” “Fire” and “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” plus future River tracks “Point Blank” and “The Ties That Bind,” and an epic resurrection of “The Fever.”

Bruce Springsteen - Lead vocal, electric and acoustic guitars, harmonica; Roy Bittan - Piano, keyboards, accordion; Clarence Clemons - Tenor and baritone saxophones, percussion, backing vocal; Danny Federici - Organ, keyboards, accordion; Nils Lofgren - Electric and acoustic guitars, backing vocal; Garry Tallent - Bass; Stevie Van Zandt - Electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin, backing vocal; Max Weinberg: Drums; Charlie Giordano - Organ, keyboards, accordion; Soozie Tyrell - Violin, acoustic guitar, percussion, backing vocal

Bruce Springsteen once said he intended to make an album with words like Bob Dylan that sounded like Phil Spector where he sang like Roy Orbison, a nifty summary of many, but not all, of his artistic ambitions and a key to his appeal.

Springsteen's first European tour culminates in a breathtaking return to London's Hammersmith Odeon for a 22-song set that is one of the standout shows on the Born To Run tour. London 11/24/75 features eight changes from opening night at Hammersmith six days prior, "Growin' Up" plus seven covers: "Pretty Flamingo," "Sha-La-La," "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck," "When You Walk In The Room," "Twist And Shout," "Carol" and "Little Queenie." Outstanding versions of "Thunder Road," "Lost In The Flood," "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City, "For You" and "Quarter To Three" round out this triumphant performance.

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.”

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.

Two days after performing The River at MSG, Bruce returns to longtime hotbed Cleveland, Ohio and makes a full-album performance of Born To Run the centerpiece of this fine Working On A Dream tour stop. In addition to all eight songs from his 1975 breakthrough, Springsteen and the E Street Band deliver "Prove It All Night," a radically rearranged "Red-Headed Woman," "Radio Nowhere," "Can't Help Falling In Love" and what is arguably the sweetest version to date of "Back In Your Arms." Trumpet player Curt Ramm guests on several songs, including an encore-closing double-shot of "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" and "Rosalita."