Bruce Springsteen - 1978-05-31 - Boston, MA (AUD/FLAC)

(Audience FLAC)

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band 
Music Hall 
Boston, MA 
May 31, 1978 
(1st Generation) 

2016 Transfer: 1st Generation Tape > Nakamichi DR-01 (azimuth adjusted) > Audacity > Peak Pro XT (pitch adjustment / volume smoothing / subtle tweak / edit / index) > xACT 2.35 > FLAC 

01 Badlands 
02 Night 
03 Spirit In The Night 
04 Something In The Night 
05 For You 
06 The Promised Land 
07 Prove It All Night 
08 Racing In The Street 
09 Thunder Road 
10 Paradise By The “C” 
11 Fire 
12 Adam Raised A Cain 
13 Mona > She’s The One 
14 Growin’ Up 
15 It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City 
16 Backstreets 
17 Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) 
18 The Promise 
19 Born To Run 
20 Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out 
21 Quarter To Three 

Known Faults: 
None 

Two days before the release of Darkness On The Edge Town, Bruce plays the last show of a three-night stand and his last ever performance at the Music Hall in Boston. The Music Hall was witness to a number of legendary performances from Bruce and Co. with many considering the 1977 run of shows some of the best of the era. The 1978 run of shows seems to find its’ place a notch below those shows, likely overshadowed by the eventual marathon performances and legendary FM broadcasts that have a permanent place in rock n’ roll legend. However, this show should not be overlooked due to both the quality of the capture and the tightly focused performance. 

The show has been available for many years, according to “collectorsmusicreview.com”, first on the CDR release “Looking For That Million Dollar Sound” which ran fast, a second pitch corrected version of “Looking For That Million Dollar Sound” and a third silver CD release “Early Darkness” on Masterpiece which is apparently taken from the pitch corrected version of the second CDR release. 

This torrent release is a newly transferred version deriving from a 1st generation tape of the only known source that has been in my possession since the early 1980’s and is one of the very best captures from the “Darkness” tour or any number of tours for that matter. There have been a number of reports regarding the struggles nailing down the sound early in the tour as the tour moved to different sized venues, none of that is apparent in this capture. The sound and the taper are both dialed in from the first to the last notes. Almost no audience interference is present and to my knowledge no music is missing or cut. The tour premier of “Quarter To Three” replaces the standard early tour closer “You Can’t Sit Down”. 

For whatever reason I was having trouble dialing in the pitch on this one so I sent it off to the good professor’s lab before final mastering took place, a big thanks to Prof Goody for the pitch adjustment settings. 

Last but not least big thanks to both the original taper and the tremendous job capturing the performance and E from JEMS for the continued use of the Nak DR-01 to ensure the absolute highest quality is attained.