Springsteen VI ~ A Dream Awaits in Aisle Two

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Has anyone been to the exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? I read this newspaper article yesterday about the audio recording they have that you can listen to of the "rock and roll future" concert in Cambridge. It was May 9 1974.

I want to hear it and I want to go :(



Springsteen tape takes us back to ‘rock & roll future’

By Steven Rosen, Globe Correspondent | May 9, 2010

The evening of May 9, 1974, is legendary in the annals of rock ’n’ roll. It was the night the little-known Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band opened for Bonnie Raitt at Harvard Square Theater, dazzling the critic Jon Landau into writing “I saw rock & roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen’’ in the local alternative weekly The Real Paper. Now a tape from that night — one of the most revered in rock history — has emerged as a museum object 36 years after the storied event.

The tape, never available for public hearing, is included in the Springsteen exhibit “From Asbury Park to the Promised Land’’ at Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, on display through summer. It has been digitalized and streams to a single listening station, where two people at a time can listen to it on headphones. It is not available on the museum’s website, nor can a copy be purchased in the museum store.

The sound has some rough patches, and there are no seats for relaxing. But the radical effect of the music on the audience then (this writer was there and can attest to that) can still be felt. The band aims for the mystically transcendent one minute and party-hearty, sax-fueled retro-rock raucousness the next, keeping everyone off guard. Springsteen was in Cambridge to promote his second album, “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle.’’

The idea for an exhibit centering on Springsteen’s career came about because the Hall of Fame’s induction ceremonies were going to be in Cleveland last year and chief curator Jim Henke wanted a big show to accompany it. He approached Springsteen, who had been inducted in 1999. Springsteen agreed and provided items ranging from his “Born to Run’’ Fender Esquire guitar to his favorite songwriting table.

The exhibit drew so well in 2009 — 423,000 visitors — that it has been extended into this summer, with newer artifacts added, including the jacket he wore to President Obama’s inauguration, his 2009 Kennedy Center award, and the Golden Globe he won for “The Wrestler.’’ But it is the Harvard Square tape that remains one of the most fascinating parts of the exhibit, just as that night itself remains an enduring, pivotal moment in the Boss’s career.

“It was my idea to include it, because that show is so famous because of Landau’s review,’’ Henke says. “So we contacted [Springsteen’s organization], and they had a tape of the songs played there. He and the E Street Band were a great live band, and that does come through in those tracks.’’

Springsteen’s band at the time of the Harvard Square booking featured a pianist with strong jazz and classical leanings, David Sancious. (He left in August 1974.) It is Sancious who makes the band’s first impression so strong, opening with a long, melancholy, and ruminative solo on “New York City Serenade.’’ It slowly leads into Springsteen’s yearningly searching vocal, with the impressionistic, romanticized lyrics that seem part Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row’’ and part Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side.’’ The song was aiming for theatrical grandeur and also reverent intimacy, and the effect it has on hushing an audience can still be felt today.

But then he moves away from that territory on “Spirit in the Night,’’ a song that still has its cryptically spooky Dylanesque lyrics but also builds into a more traditional soul shout-out, thanks to Clarence Clemons’s saxophone solo. The band then goes into soul-oldies heaven with a cover of “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman,’’ which had been a 1962 girl-group hit. On these three songs and five others, it’s evident that Springsteen and his tightly rehearsed ensemble were trying simultaneously to draw from the music’s past and to create a future. This is the night they came to be forever recognized for it.

It took luck for Springsteen’s audio engineer, Toby Scott, to find the tape. He lives in northwest Montana and met a Boston emigre, musician/retired music teacher Michael Atherton, at an open-mike night at a bar in the town of Whitefish. Atherton, a resident of Trego, said he had a tape for him — Springsteen at Harvard Square Theatre, 1974. He had made it himself, lugging in a professional-model cassette recorder with external microphone and taping the show from a seat in the back. At the time, Atherton was a natural-foods baker (with his wife) as well as a musician. “I saw every concert we could afford to — of course, we were broke most of the time,’’ Atherton recalls. “I don’t even know how I knew who Bruce Springsteen was. When we baked, we listened to WBCN all the time and even took doughnuts over to them because we thought they were so cool. So maybe that was it.’’

Smuggling the bulky recorder into the show turned out to be easy, because he was prepared. “My father was a news photographer for 40 years and instilled in me a rule to always look like you know what you’re doing when confronted with any possible security situation,’’ he says. “So I put it under my peacoat, where it probably looked like I was pregnant. Then I put it in my lap and held the microphone up in the air.’’ He also recorded a bit of Raitt’s headlining act, before the batteries gave out.

Over the years — as Atherton and his wife moved to first New Hampshire and then Montana, he has made a few copies for friends — which may have something to do with the bootleg copies that some Internet sites say exist. But he has only played it once for himself. “It was every bit as good as I remembered it,’’ he says. “It was the greatest band concert I’ve ever seen — completely together, completely refined, the dramatic intent clear from beginning to end.’’

Actually, Landau — who went on to become Springsteen’s manager — didn’t see the performance that can now be heard at the hall of fame. He went to the second show that night, when the set list not only was somewhat changed — Springsteen opened with “The E Street Shuffle’’ — but showcased a new song, “Born to Run.’’ Landau had seen Springsteen at a Cambridge club called Charlie’s Place just a month earlier.

Landau declined comment for this story, but the music writer Dave Marsh — Landau’s editor at the time — recalls The Real Paper review well. “It was playing off ‘A Christmas Carol’ — it was Dickensian in the way he talks about rock ’n’ roll’s past, present, and future. It always gets quoted as being in a prophetic voice, but it wasn’t.’’

Marsh went on to write two Springsteen biographies and “Bruce Springsteen on Tour: 1968-2005.’’ While he and Landau had seen Springsteen earlier in a small Cambridge club, Marsh didn’t make the Harvard Square show. “This is a horrible thing to say,’’ he says. “I had a ticket but was sick
 
Springsteen did two shows that night, and as the article states, Landau went to the second one. It is that second show that there is no known audio.

This article refers to the first show, and that tape has been widely available on bootlegs for years. So nothing new here, unfortunately (although I'm curious if the sound quality for the copy at the HOF is any better).
 
No, it was an audience recording, taped by that guy mentioned in the article.

Springsteen did make the rounds at radio stations quite frequently back then though. One of the more famous radio station stops that year was at WBCN where he did, among other things, an acoustic version of Rosalita.
 
BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE! what an odd bunch to perform with,

Gaga and Bruuuuuce! I feel the same as you here Mrs Springsteen, the fake nonsense pop world meets a true songwriting talent!

I was hoping Bruce would take the hammer on solo, but ah well glad he got to rip it up in the end!

Again ain't Bruce V active of late, for a man who has pretty much just come off two back to back world tours and made two incredible albums! he seems to be performing every chance he gets, I hope this means he is raring to get back into the studio and hit the road!
 
It actually doesn't bother me all that much..it's just an odd collision of two worlds. It's just like Bono singing with XYZ pop star, I don't freak out over that
 
Ah yeah same as that, I'm not bothered at all, I just find it weird when a real musician who has perfected his/her craft, collaborates with a musician who's main issue is what clothes they wear etc etc, I hate all that Pop world image non-sense!
 
I'm going to see something called "Bruce Springsteen In Concert in HD" tomorrow night but I don't know exactly what it is and neither do the lame box office people. Would it be this London Calling DVD? Is that making the rounds in theaters? Although this particular theater (normally a performing arts theater, not a movie theater) shows random good movies on its "Big Screen" night so it could be any ol' Springsteen DVD I suppose but how many are there in HD?

What the heck, Springsteen+HD+big screen+$10 = I'm there.
 
Bruce with Lady Gaga and some others at the Rainforest Benefit last night. I never thought I'd see him performing with Lady Gaga :slant: Oh well.

YouTube - "Don't Stop Believin'" - Lady Gaga, Elton John, Springsteen, Sting, Blondie, Shirley Bassey
How odd...but awesome. That's a great circle of voices, don't hate ;).

I had no idea bout the RaRHoF exhibit (or maybe I did and forgot?), but have been since reminded and may be heading out to it as soon as next weekend :hyper:
 
Ok, so the film turned out to be the Barcelona 2002 show, which I had never seen in its entire awesomeness. The sound in the theater was shockingly bad and I actually got up and asked about it but since it's not really a movie theater I couldn't get my panties in too much of a wad over it. My solution was to just move to the 2nd row and get lost in the giantness of it all. And can I just say that once Bruce comes out for the encores in that black t-shirt I don't think he's ever looked better. Great, great show. Even the cheese was funny and charming.

On the way out I saw shell-shocked people who had obviously never been to a live Springsteen show and overheard people saying things like, "Oh my God, that was the most amazing 3hours I've ever seen on film" and stuff like that. So that was kind of cool.

What was a little disturbing was that I was, for once, one of the youngest people in the audience. :huh:

And why don't the Barcelona women love Bruce? I mean, when the camera panned the audience it seemed to be (at least down front) 90% men. A sea of hot Spanish men under the age of 35 while I was literally surrounded by senior citizens. And by senior citizen I don't just mean simply eligible for AARP, I mean people in their 60's and 70's. Both cool and :uhoh:
 
And why don't the Barcelona women love Bruce? I mean, when the camera panned the audience it seemed to be (at least down front) 90% men.


I remember when Bruce was inducting Jackson Browne into the RRHoF, he was complaining about that very thing: how Jackson Browne got all the girls at his shows and how Bruce had almost all guys in the audience.
 
There's a photo of Bruce in People Magazine singing with Kate Hudson during Don't Stop Believing. She's the new spokesperson for Almay so I guess that makes her a singer? They also have a photo of Sting in drag-he's not a good looking woman.
 
I saw Lady Gaga on an interview on Fuse yesterday and she talked about the music her parents played around the house when she was a kid..she mentioned how she and her Dad are the biggest Bruce fans. I didn't know she's only 23.
 
soooo considering they have this stoopid rule over at backstreets about posting links, requests, e-mails, etc. etc. etc. about even audio rips of official material, does anyone know where i can get my hands on an audio rip of the london calling dvd?

i mean i'm gonna buy the blu-ray... i just don't have way to rip from blu-ray. somebody gonna help a brotha out?
 
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