Live in Albany 1978

Known Faults:
-She's The One: first few notes cut, seamless splice
-Rosalita: spoken intro, 31 seconds of audience, tuning and the word "where"

patched with Recorder 1 (no music)

For our milestone tenth release in the DS Archives Series we momentarily leave behind the Born To Run era and jump ahead a few years to one of the most exciting times in Bruce’s career.

With lawsuit troubles behind him and a new LP in the can, Bruce and the band hit the stage in Buffalo for opening night of what would be an epic North American tour in support of the yet to be released new LP.

Through detailed research the Bruce community has brought to light two solid recording sources for the opening night as well as the three recording sources for the first Philadelphia show less than a week later on the 26th.
With Albany being 300 miles east of Buffalo and still solidly in the band’s area of strong support, I’ve always wondered, was there more than one Bruce tramp rolling tape that night?

The emergence of Dan’s archives has given us the answer…this, the second night of tour, has previously been available on a good quality recording for some time now, I was able to upgrade that specific recording from my own archives a year or so ago. Dan and I are pleased to present an excellent alternate second recording source that moves the show another step forward and appears to not be in general circulation.

I’ve always felt like the first few of weeks of the 1978 tour were a bit of a transition period for Bruce’s live performances. Over a year removed from the shorter, brooding and intense “lawsuit” tour and not yet to the point of the epic marathon shows that the band would build to as the tour progressed. As the band hits the stage of the 2800 seat Palace Theatre it’s all business with a bit of nervous energy and tight focus on the music as the band learns the new tunes and Bruce works on the flow of the show.

The core parts of the show are very much in flux, ‘Darkness On The Edge Of Town’ appears in the second set before being dropped until Boston on the 29th. Only to be dropped again, not making another appearance until Milwaukee on June 9th, where it would take its’ rightful permanent place in the first set. One has to wonder why Bruce appears to have struggled with including such a powerful, beautiful, not to mention the namesake of the new LP, song in the live show early on.

The first set’s anchor of “The Promised Land”, “Prove It All Night”, “Racing In The Streets” and “Jungleland” are still a number of shows away and this is basically the same set as opening night in a slightly re-worked order..

The recording is top notch, the taper did an excellent job capturing all of the show on very good equipment. The pitch was consistently slow and was easily corrected, there was a lot to work with as far as a wide frequency spectrum which made mastering very easy. This one is highly recommended and is a very nice upgrade to the recorder 1 source.

We do get some interesting Bruce speak between 'Rosalita' and 'The Promise' that is missing from the Recorder 1 tape. Some idiot sets off a bunch of firecrackers and the crowd starts booing, Bruce then scolds them with "you boys with the fucking firecrackers go ahead and get the hell out". Then asking the audience to sit down for a beautiful version of 'The Promise'.

Once again, thanks go out to a number of folks that helped put me in touch with Dan, their assistance and passion for Bruce and getting this music in your hands continues to be invaluable...IvannF, EarlMv, Oats1jvo as well as E from JEMS for the use of the NAK DR-1.

The biggest thanks go to Dan for making his archives available for us all to enjoy...feel free to show your appreciation on the comments.

mjk5510