Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Live at Winterland '78

The posts have been in short supply lately as I've been in the process of moving.  I am sore, tired and surrounded by mountains of boxes as I type this - but internet has been restored and visible voice is back in business.  I've had little chance to listen to much new music in between unpacking and getting things back to normal.  There's plenty of great audio/video coming soon - but I haven't had time to do the proper editing.  So, I'll reach back into the "archives" and share one of the most jawdroppingly powerful examples of live music I've ever heard...

For a large portion of my adolescence I was obsessed with the music of Bruce Springsteen.  I first saw Springsteen in 1999 when he reunited the E Street Band after a 10 year hiatus for a massive world tour.  I saw the last of 5 straight sold out nights at the Garden, and was instantly converted.  And it's a good thing - at the time my taste in music was a mess (Metallica, Fuel, Live - yes, it was that bad).  The level of my Springsteen obsession was probably unhealthy for a time, but after I had immersed myself in everything the man has released, I branched out.  In an effort to find new and exciting music that retained a bit of the qualities that made Springsteen's music resonate so much with me I soon discovered Ryan Adams, Wilco, Pete Yorn - these artists, in turn, turned me on to Gram Parsons, Big Star and The Smiths.  As unlikely as it sounds for someone my age, I credit Bruce Springsteen with my musical curiosity and passion.

When you boil it all down, Bruce Springsteen's music is about grit, passion and determination.  Nothing in the Springsteen canon exemplifies this more than the legendary Darkness On The Edge of Town tour of 1978.  Delayed by a protracted and bitter legal battle with former manager Mike Appel, the Darkness On The Edge of Town album was much darker than his previous record, Born To Run.  Gone was a bit of the optimism, and in its place was a bit of cynicsm.  The characters were no longer "pulling out of here to win", they were stuck in the darkness on the edge of town, in dead-end jobs, crying themselves to sleep at night.  Their dreams may have passed them by.  When Springsteen and crew brought these songs on the road, they came to life with a burning intensity.  Shows on the Darkness tour were no longer just a party, they were a much-needed catharsis both for the band and the audience.  The guitars were dirtier, the screams were louder, the emotion was palpable.  By December of 1978 when the band took the stage in San Francisco at the famed Winterland Ballroom (site of The Last Waltz), Springsteen's voice was hoarse and ragged but the band was tighter than ever.  This was the setting for what is probably the most famous show of Springsteen's career - broadcast on FM radio to much of the west coast, and now available to all in pristine sound quality.  This is a document of one of the greatest live rock n' roll bands of all time at the height of their power.  At just over 3 hours, Springsteen would go on to play even longer shows on subsequent tours - but for me, even though I wasn't there to witness it, nothing matches the energy and intensity of the legendary string of shows in late-1978.

These days my Springsteen obsession ebbs and flows - and with the exciting news about a massive Darkness On The Edge Of Town box set soon to be released, it's flowing once again.  For those of you that may picture Bruce as the fist-pumping charicature he became circa-1984 - please do yourself a favor and listen to his earlier stuff, and start with this legendary recording from Winterland 1978.  Enjoy

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Winterland Ballroom - San Francisco CA
December 15, 1978

Badlands
Streets Of Fire
Spirit In The Night
Darkness On The Edge Of Town
Factory
The Promised Land
Prove It All Night
Racing In The Street
Thunder Road
Jungleland
The Ties That Bind
Santa Intro
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
The Fever
Fire
Candy's Room
Because The Night
Point Blank
Mona / Preacher's Daughter
She's The One
Backstreets
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
Born To Run
Detroit Medley
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Raise Your Hand
Twist & Shout (no audio exists)