Bruce Springsteen - The Darkness Tour 1978

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Some very dodgy sound quality

This is a 3CD box set of recordings "made for FM radio" from Bruce Springsteen's 1978 tour.  It's a great record of the man in concert and some of the performances are fantastic, but be warned that the sound quality isn't very good some of the time.

Springsteen's music from this time scarcely needs comment from me; it's almost universally superb.  I think that Darkness On The Edge Of Town remains one of the greatest rock albums ever made, Springsteen has always been a great live performer and the combination of material and performance could sometimes create something quite exceptional.  I saw him live only once, in 1985, and it was an amazing concert.  There are times here which sound as though he may have been just as good in some of these concerts, with some real passion and power and great work from the band.  It's a proper live recording, warts and all, so Bruce hits the occasional note slightly off-key and so on – but I like that.  It's what live performance is about and I don't want airbrushed perfection.  It could be a great live set, but as a whole set it doesn't really deliver as it should. 

Part of this is because it's not a single concert but cut together from a lot of different broadcasts which means that some of the sense of a live occasion is lost.  Much of the problem is the sound quality.  It's very variable: some is OK, but some tracks, for example, are plainly recorded from a dodgy FM radio with some very intrusive fluttering hiss (Racing In The Street is just one instance). Overall, the sound is often just poor enough to keep intruding on my awareness of the music and spoiling it slightly.  It's not as dreadful as some recent old live recordings, but it's bad enough to be a bit of a problem.  I also wonder what they mean by "remastered".  I suspect they've just jacked up the bass a bit – it certainly doesn't sound to me as though there's been any attempt to clean up the sound.

So…you pays yer money and you takes yer choice.  Personally, I'm glad to have this – it's not expensive for a 3CD set, after all – but I'm not sure how often I'll be listening to it.  My old vinyl set of Live 1975-85 doesn't have identical content, obviously, but it is better in many ways and is now available on CD pretty cheaply.  I'd recommend that before this, without question.  This is one for the long-term fans, really – it's OK but not great.