Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
featuring the Miami Horns
Music Hall
Boston, MA
March 22, 1977
16/44.1 CD Version

Steve Hopkins master via JEMS 

Taping Gear: Sony ECM-99A > Sony TC-158SD (recorded on two Maxell UD 90-minute tapes, Dolby B encode) 

JEMS 2012 transfer: SH master cassettes > 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 Night
02 Don't Look Back
03 Spirit in the Night
04 It's My Life
05 Thunder Road
06 Mona > She's the One (last few seconds missing)
07 Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
08 Action in the Streets
09 Backstreets
10 Jungleland
11 Rosalita
12 Born to Run
13 The Promise
14 Quarter to Three
15 You Can't Sit Down

It's the kind of debate diehards love: What's Bruce's greatest concert stand? Not a single show, but a continuous residency at a single venue? Bottom Line '75 springs to mind. Passaic '78. LA Sports Arena '81. The ten-pack at Meadowlands '84. The list of nominees goes on. But it would be hard to quibble with the run of four shows Bruce and the band kicked off this night in Boston, the last proper shows before the settlement of the Appel lawsuit and the commencement of recording for Darkness on the Edge of Town.

I've been accused of hyperbolic writing (a charge I do not deny, by the way, as one has to be a superfan to do what we do), but I don't think there's any way to over hype this show and this run of shows. While I was well familiar with the last two concerts in Boston, March 24-25, I was less familiar with opening night and my response has remained the same through repeated listening: Holy fucking shit.

From the blistering version of "Night" that opens, if there's a more passionate, joyful, emotional, giving-it-his-absolute-all show than this, I'm struggling to find it, though I know the three nights that follow just might be them. Song after song is performed in quintessential versions, with particularly epic readings here of "Spirit in the Night," "It's My Life," "Mona" into "She's the One," "Backstreets," "Jungleland" and "The Promise."

Then there's the two new songs. "Don't Look Back" is evolving every show with lyrics the first night that won't be there the last. Bruce sings it with incredible conviction knowing most in the audience have never heard it. Later, "Action in the Streets" is Bruce's best horn number ever, period. Now here's a song that deserves to be revived on the Wrecking Ball tour. It just kills here.

The man who documented Bruce at this venue so brilliantly, Steve Hopkins, had upgraded his recorder in time for the '77 shows, now using Sony's latest TC-158SD. That was the deck for this run and his seats every night were pretty much identical too, 5-10 rows back of the right side PA stack, explaining why all four nights sound so similar.

While Hopkins' recording is nothing short of fantastic, he's really just capturing lightning in a bottle. The musicians on stage are doing everything to make this performance and those that follow, ones for the ages. Samples provided, as well as a .jpg of the review of this show in the Boston Globe.

Given that there's a few days before the European tour kicks off, I wanted to get this out there before those new recordings again command attention. Thanks again to Steve for allowing JEMS to present his incredible work in a fresh light.

24/96 version to follow shortly. It's ready, too.

As it used to say in the end credits of Bond movies, the Boston '77 run will return.

BK for JEMS

PS: We will upload this to DIME so you need not.