LISTEN/DOWNLOAD: Bruce Springsteen's Piece De Resistance

Bruce Springsteen - Lawrence Kirsch ©.

A little while back, Bruce Springsteen's Darkness On The Edge Of Town reissue was officially announced.  With more rare Springsteen than the average person could handle, it would seem that the new box set is the complete document of Darkness. But it's not.

Maybe it's because of the full length concert film but unlike the Born To Run re-issue, it does not contain a standalone audio concert. Maybe two more discs would be overkill. Or maybe it's because of the abundance of high quality bootlegs from the Darkness tour.

The 1978 Darkness On The Edge Of Town tour is considered by many fans and critics as one of the greatest concert tours of all time. Tangled up in legal battles with ex-manager Mike Appel, Springsteen was banned from the recording studio for nearly a year, until 1977 when sessions for the Born To Run followup could begin. Springsteen emerged from the studio in 1978, with a new sound, a new writing style and hunger for live performance.

While "Born To Run" was a romantic densely layered masterpiece of hope and dreams, Darkness was a stripped down album about when dreams don't come true and in some cases, hope runs out. From the first night of the tour it was clear things had changed. Already known for his captivating live performances, Springsteen was playing harder and longer than ever. Concerts stretched to three hours plus, a Springsteen standard that until recently would remain for decades. This was a guitar driven album.  The live versions of "Badlands" would feature power chords drenched in reverbed distortion and blistering extended guitar solos for "Prove It All Night". It would seem that Springsteen was out for blood.



With lessons learned from the media frenzy following the Born To Run album, Springsteen granted fewer interviews than ever before. Instead numerous concerts throughout the tour would be broadcast in full over FM radio stations, for free. Springsteen would let the music do the talking and any doubters could draw their own conclusions.

While the Houston show was chosen for inclusion in the box set, there is good reason to believe many other legendary shows from the Darkness tour remain sealed in the vaults. Yet, through the magic of bootlegging many of those incendiary performances survive to this day, in amazing quality and available now.

Roxy Night, Oh Boy, Agora Night, and Winterland, all bootlegs well known and cherished by traders for decades. But one stands above the rest. Considered by many to be the greatest Springsteen live performance ever, Piece De Resistance captures the full performance from New Jersey's Capitol Theater on September 19, 1978. Pulled from WNEW's FM broadcast, not much else really needs to be said. Listen for your self.

DOWNLOAD:
Discs 1 & 2 - Piece De Resistance: Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band at the Capitol Theater - Passaic, NJ 9/19/78
DOWNLOAD:
Disc 3 - Piece De Resistance: Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band at the Capitol Theater - Passaic, NJ 9/19/78

Another version surfaced about 5 years ago that presents the Capitol Theater performance as it was broadcast by WNEW on that warm Septmember night in 1978 complete with introductions, DJ interviews, and station breaks. Sound Quality is a little lower than Piece De Resistance but absolutely worthy of multiple listens.

FULL DOWNLOAD:
The Way It Was - Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band at the Capitol Theater - Passaic, NJ 9/19/78 Un-Edited WNEW Broadcast.

PHOTO CREDIT: The header image is from photographer Lawrence Kirsch's excellent book The Light In Darkness which chronicles Bruce Springsteen's 1978 Darkness On The Edge of Town tour. It is a must for any Springsteen fan. Please check it out: http://thelightindarkness.com/home/