Bruce Springsteen
Close Encounter
Music Hall
Boston, MA
December 3, 1975

Steve Hopkins master via JEMS 

Taping Gear: Sony ECM-99A > Sony TC-152SD (recorded on two Maxell UD 90-minute tapes, Dolby B encode) 

JEMS 2012 transfer: SH master cassette > Nakamichi CR-7A (Dolby B decode) > Sound Devices USBPre2 (24/96) > Peak 6.0 with iZotope Ozone > .wav (24/96) > resample via iZotope MBIT+ to .wav (16/44) > FLAC

01 Thunder Road
02 Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
03 Spirit in the Night
04 Lost in the Flood
05 She's the One
06 Born to Run
07 Pretty Flamingo
08 Growin' Up
09 Saint in the City
10 Backstreets
11 Kitty's Back
12 Jungleland
13 Rosalita
14 Sandy
15 Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town
16 Detroit Medley
17 For You
18 Quarter to Three

Release Notes
JEMS is proud to partner once again with Boston taper Steve Hopkins to release some of the essential Springsteen recordings he made between 1974 and 1977. Steve recorded Springsteen a total of nine times and he has previously tormented two of those shows from his masters (plus a third, incomplete recording of Providence August 26, 1978 recorded by his friend FF). Late last year, JEMS picked up where he left off, releasing the next of Steve's remaining Bruce masters, Providence, July 20, 1975. And earlier this year we issued a fresh transfer of Boston, December 2, 1975, number four in the series.

Number five is the second of those two nights at the Music Hall. Like the first night, it is another 18-song set, with two welcome variations: a lovely "Pretty Flamingo" replacing "The E Street Shuffle" and a stunning solo "for You" instead of "Party Lights" in the encore. And the "Kitty's Back" might be even more epic than the prior evening. In short, it is another wonderful performance and Hopkins recording, this time with no cuts unlike most circulating copies. Samples provided and the ticket stub, too.

Boston 2 also turned out to be different for Hopkins himself in one major way that he recalls in detail: 

"You'll hear some crowd commotion during the slow final verse of 'Spirit In The Night' ('Hazy Davy got really hurt…'). Here's what happened. I was recording from the 2nd row center with my deck in a briefcase under my seat and holding the mic at head level, as high as possible without being obvious. As the song slows, the lights go down and Bruce jumps down from the stage into the orchestra pit and out of sight. There's seating there now, but in 1975 there was an actual 'pit' between the stage and the audience. As the song continues, he peers up over the edge of the pit, locks eyes with the girl sitting next to me, continues singing and approaches her, climbs over the people in the front row and sits down in her lap, now singing directly to her. Then he proceeds to sprawl out, completely flat on his back, spread across four of us in that row, so that his head is actually in my lap, his mic and my mic are no more than a foot or two apart as he continues singing. All this time, the spot light is following him and on us, so I've lowered my mic under my seat, out of sight, but still recording, thinking security would be on me at any minute. And then, as quickly as it happened, he was gone and bounded back onto the stage to finish the song."

Please enjoy Close Encounter. The Hopkins series will see you next in that most appealing of years, 1977.

BK for JEMS