Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band - Live / 1975-85

I sez: number of great renditions on this, It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City, Hungry Heart, Nebraska, the River, No Surrender etc. but I might have to go with the opening track Thunder Road.

Hungry Heart is awesome, great box set anyway, but what's the track where Bruce starts talking about "i think my mother and father are here tonight", so cheesy/sentimental, but I love it.

Jersey Girl is great too, it almost saved that Kevin Smith movie.

"Jersey Girl"!

Gor, didn't the epeople go mad for this one, at the time?

And isn't it another one going for neext to nowt at charity shops?

I remember the LINES for this; people camped overnight outside a Specs Records and Tapes. It was the holiday record of '86.

Hungry Heart is awesome, great box set anyway, but what's the track where Bruce starts talking about "i think my mother and father are here tonight", so cheesy/sentimental, but I love it.

Middle of "Growin' up".

Ha, I waited till a year after release to pick this one up for like 10 bucks! Which is about as much use as I got out of it. I still like that first cassette/CD - the 1978 stuff. After that, my interest fades in indirect proportion to the steadily increasing venues. The spoken bits are kinda nice, but the energy dissipates. So, it's "Hard To Be A Saint In The City" for me.

xgau gave soulja boy's album an A. end of thread.

This thread isn't about the merits of Christgau or Soulja Boy (though they're both classic), it's about the Boss. So jog on, you cunt.

Is it the intro to "War" where Bruce talks about failing the draft exam, the audience laughs, and he says "It isn't funny."

Can we vote for random bits of dialogue?

If so, I'm going for "a suit ... a LEGAL suit."

xpost. It's at the start of the River, which is the track before War.

Dialogue-wise, he gets 5 demerits for taking no chances and automatically censoring himself (ie. fading the final two syllables of "motherfucker") rather than risk offending many thousands of his fans.

His monologue about the draft and his father is pretty heartbreaking.

I don't like how he changed the line in "Rosalita" about getting a "big advance" to a "big contract."

Born In The USA. That version is just overpowering.

I heard this box (many times) before I heard most of the studio albums, so these still sound like the definitive versions to me-- esp. in the case of "Thunder Road."

the river for the story, probably. my dad used to rock this on the regular. oh simpler times.

Middle of "Growin' up".

ah thanks, voted for that one. :)

His monologue about the draft and his father is pretty heartbreaking.

― sexyDancer

Yeah, it is quite corny but affecting (like a lot of things the Boss is involved with). The teenage guys going out all night a few days before the medical for being drafted and being all nervous actually made me think, usually just think about the Vietnam war in terms of "the poor Vietnamese", not "the poor American teenage-boys scared shitless going off the other side of the world to get brutalised, maimed and killed". But he tells a good story.

I love this version of Jersey Girl but after I later heard Tom Waits' original I really started missing the last verse (and wondering why Springsteen omitted it): "And I call your name/I can't sleep at night." Without it the song takes on a whole different meaning, more escapist and celebratory.

Bought this mint on vinyl for a buck last year. (!)

Poppa loves a bargain.

Havnet listened to it with enough intensity to participate in the poll, though.

wow that's a bargain for sure.

i got it on vinyl as well, which is a strange story. I knew a girl in an American punkrock band, who said i got a couple of Bruce Springsteen records I hate, wanna have them? Sure i said, i actually thought they were cd's too. I wasn't really into the Boss, thinking it would be a good gift for my mother's birthday. So they arrive just in time, my mother opens the package (which is already mysteriously big) turns out it's vinyl (which my mother has no use for) and it's a record she already has (on tape haha) And my mom is all like oh poor girl the shipping costs are too much etc. etc.

so.. I kept them myself in the end. Mwuahaha.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Dialogue-wise, he gets 5 demerits for taking no chances and automatically censoring himself (ie. fading the final two syllables of "motherfucker") rather than risk offending many thousands of his fans.

He actually said "motherfucker"; the conglomerate broadcasting the concert at the time (I think it was Westwood One) censored it and, for whatever reason, that was the only copy available for use for the live album (no pre-edit master could be found).

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The "motherfucker" you should complain about is James Taylor's on the Greatest Hits versopm of "Steamroller Blues" (decent track, actually). He deleted it or blurred it, can't remember whcih, on a reissue a few years ago for the sake of kids listening with their parents. After Greatest Hits had already sold eleven million motherfucking copies.

which

I'm pretty sure I voted for "Thunder Road". What a terrific performance, the one I reach for first when I want to hear that song.

version!

xxxxxpost - All right, 5-demerit penalty reversed if the researchers truly lost the master! (Reduced to three if they were merely too lazy to look for it.)

As for James Taylor, I have absolutely no opinion.

I probably should have voted Thunder Road. I do now think of this version as the default.

I always thought this was pretty great, but now I've listened to some of the legendary Darkness/River shows (Roxy! Agora! Passaic! Winterland! Tempe! Nassau!) I've come to the conclusion that this box set has had all energy and enthusiasm mixed out of it.

Yeah, I think that is pretty true -- if you want to make a Springsteen believer out of someone, play he/she one of those 78 bootlegs ... Less "serious artist" Brooce and more just a kickass performer, with a tight/fun band.

Seeds is a great song, but I like the acoustic version from the '86 Bridge benefit more than the amped-up full-band version here.

is the We Are The World album the only place to find "Trapped"?

It's on the bonus disc of The Essential, not sure if that's still in print in 3xCD form.

When I was 6 (1986), my grandparents gave me this as a Christmas present. I tried listening to the whole thing that night but I think there were some good shows on Nickelodeon so my attention span didn't allow me to listen all in one shot like I had originally hoped. That was a good day for me.

I haven't listened to this box in ages, because I'd rather listen to a dozen better boots, but I do know several of the tracks on here are edited versions of performances from the famed Roxy and Winterland shows. Maybe they'll show up officially if that Darkness anniversary set ever appears.