Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band 
featuring the Miami Horns 
Music Hall 
Boston, MA 
March 23, 1977
16/44.1 Edition

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 (incl. speed correction) > .wav (24/96) > FLAC 

01 Night 
02 Don't Look Back 
03 Spirit in the Night 
04 Incident on 57th Street 
05 Thunder Road 
06 Mona > She's the One
07 Tenth Avenue Freeze-out 
08 Growin' Up 
09 Backstreets 
10 Jungleland 
11 Rosalita 
12 Born to Run 
13 Quarter to Three
14 Little Latin Lupe Lu
15 You Can't Sit Down 

Night two of what I call Springsteen's greatest concert stand ever brought with it some setlist changes. "Incident on 57th Street" replaces "It's My Life," and while I am admittedly something of an "Incident" apologist, it will grow to be a stronger performance nights three and four. "Action in the Streets" takes a seat on the bench in favor of a lively "Growin' Up." And "The Promise" departs to make room for the debut of "Little Latin Lupe Lu," giving us an encore that is truly a non-stop party.

"Don't Look Back" is even stronger this night and its lyrics are further cemented vs. night one. And like night one, the show is again peppered with moments where Bruce is pushing his performance to staggering heights. He even changes his vocal delivery in "Thunder Road" as the moment moves him. 

Our friend Mr. Hopkins switched sides of the house for the this and the next two shows, sitting 5-10 rows back of the stage left PA stack. As good as his recording of 3/22 was, this might be just a tiny bit better. Every second Steve recorded, including the applause breaks, has been preserved.

As folks who have recorded so many shows ourselves and mastered many recordings from the original tapes, I can't tell you how fantastic Steve's actual masters are. First of all, the sound in the venue must have been incredible to begin with. You can hear each instrument with uncanny clarity even when they are all blasting away together. And Hopkins' location, mic, recorder and taper acumen are all dialed in perfectly to capture that majestic sound. We often say things like, "It would be difficult to record a show this well today." I'm here to tell you that you couldn't. I couldn't. It can't be done. Despite all the improvements in technology and theoretically in live-sound reinforcement, too, ''77 sounds way better than 2012. Samples provided.

The Boston '77 run will return. 

BK for JEMS 

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