Well, I claimed back in June that this one wasn’t set for release anytime soon, but once again the Archive Series has delivered! While theories have ran rampant about Asbury Park Christmas shows, December 28th, 1980 or something else entirely, Nugs and Bruce Inc. have given us a Christmas miracle. When the following night was unearthed in June 2018, shouts for the release of this one were met with an unfortunate reality check. The master-tapes for this night were damaged and consequently, there was no chance of an Archive Series release. I don’t know who was keeping the faith, but there’s evidently magic in the night with this one. The Crystal Cat audience recording is really stellar sound-wise, but very little beats an official Jon Altschiller mix.
While it’s been stated that parts of “Lonesome Day” and “The Rising” were in fact missing from the multi-track reels – and as a result a two-track source was used to include them in the show – there’s more than enough in this one to make up for any potential downgrades in audio. If anything, the fact that “Incident” into “Rosie” and “Bobby Jean” and “American Land” transition the way they should is enough, but to have that opening trio of “Thundercrack”, “Seeds” and “Prove It”, that full WIESS album performance (including the Archive Series debut of the full band “Wild Billy’s Circus Story”) and those excellent performances of “Does This Bus Stop”, “Raise Your Hand” and “Human Touch” ends a great year for the Archive Series on an outstanding note.Rating: 9.25/10
Kieran’s recommended listening from November 7th, 2009 – New York, NY:
“Thundercrack“, “Seeds“, “Prove It All Night“, “The E Street Shuffle“, “4th July, Asbury Park (Sandy)“, “Kitty’s Back“, “Wild Billy’s Circus Story“, “Incident on 57th Street“, “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)“, “New York City Serenade“, “Raise Your Hand“, “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?”, “Glory Days”, “Human Touch“, “Wrecking Ball” and “American Land”.You can download this phenomenal night in the Garden here.
This will be my final Springsteen blog post of the year, so I’d like to say thank you to everyone who’s visited this site in 2020. Whether you enjoyed what I’ve had to say or not, I can’t stress enough how much I appreciate you giving it a chance. I’ll be back on January 1st with Springsteen’s Archive Series: The possibilities for 2021 (and the Series’ Top 10 songs of 2020).
Before my next Previously from the Springsteen archive post where I’ll be talking about the final Working on a Dream Tour stop in Buffalo and its notable full album performance of Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ, I wanted to talk about another notable night from the tour. The first of two nights in Madison Square Garden is one that we know isn’t set for release anytime soon from the Springsteen archive, if ever, as Nugs’ Brad Serling confirmed there were issues with the drives this show was recorded on, making it pretty much impossible to recover it. It’s even been confirmed that we would have had this concert released over the next night and its first ever performance of The River album from start to finish if it were available. Fortunately most soundboard bootlegs circulating of this show are in good listenable quality and that definitely applies to the…
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Kieran's Thoughts, Previews & Reviews 