¥IT HAD BEENthree very long
years sinceBorntoRunmade
Bruce Springsteen a nation-
alstar.Abitterlawsuitfiled
against his former manager in
1976 left him legally unable to
enterastudiofortwoyearsbe-
fore makingDarkness on the
Edge of Town.“ProveItAll
Night”, his new single, stalled at
Number 33 on the charts. Any-
thing radio-friendly, like “Fire”
and“BecausetheNight”,was
held offDarknessto maintain
the starker atmosphere Spring-
steenwantedforhissetofsongs
abouttherealityofeveryday
working life. To many, all of this
wasevidencethatSpringsteen
wasindecline.Sohedidthe
thinghecoulddobetterthanal-
most anyone alive: He went on
tour. “With the burden of prov-
ingIwasn’tahas-beenat28,”he
wroteinhis2016memoir,Born
to Run,“I headed out on the
road performing long, sweat-
drenched rock shows featuring
the new album.”
SpringsteenandtheEStreet
Band played 115 shows across
NorthAmerica,thelongestse-
riesofdatestheywouldever
play in a single year. Even the
soundchecksweregruelling.
“Literally,wewouldplay‘Thun-
derRoad’forahalf-hourand
Bruce would walk around and
sitineverysectionandmake
sure the sound was as good as
possible,” says drummer Max
Weinberg.“Look,Brucetook
his fun very seriously.” Not ev-
eryone thought it was so much
fun.“Ithoughtitwasalittle
self-indulgent and a little bit
silly,”saysbassistGarryTall-
ent. “We would do four-hour
soundchecks and then a three-
and-a-half-hour show. We were
younger then.”Sets featured the majority of
the new album, a big chunk of
Born to Run and favourites off
the first two discs, like “Spirit in
the Night” and “Rosalita (Come
Out Tonight)”. After so much
time off, the band played with a
stunning mix of pent-up energy
and technical precision. “Any-
one can be great on any given
night,” says Weinberg. “To re-
ally be great every night takes
a lot of willpower, a lot of dedi-
cation, a lot of self-confidence,
a lot of respect for your audi-
ence – tremendous respect for
the audience.”
Live, the songs complete-
ly transformed from their re-
corded versions. For “Prove
It All Night”, the band added
a piano and guitar intro that
built to a furious climax, and
“Backstreets” developed an
emotional spoken-word inter-
lude about lost love that even-
tually morphed into “Drive All
Night”, from The River. “Even
at that point, the whole thing
was ‘You have to see them live- you can’t go by the record’,”
says Tallent.
As the tour crisscrossed the
nation, with five shows get-
ting broadcast on the radio
and quickly hitting the boot-
leg market, a new respect for
the album took hold. “Night
after night, we sent our listen-
ers away, back to the recorded
versions of this music,” Spring-
steen wrote in Born to Run,
“newly able to hear their beau-
ty and restrained power.”
One particularly great show
took place at the tiny Agora
Ballroom in Cleveland. Open-
ing with a ferocious cover of
Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime
Blues” and wrapping up three
hours later with a wild “Twist
and Shout”, it became one of the
most coveted bootlegs in rock
history. “It was really hot,” says
Weinberg. “Just sweltering. It
was incredibly exciting. Then
you just get on the bus and go
to the next gig. It was like that
about five nights a week with
two days off.”
Word of Spr ing st een’s glor i-
ous return prompted CBS Rec-
ords to mount a huge billboard
of his image on the Sunset Strip,
advertising the album and tour
but making no mention of the
band. “It was the ugliest thing
I’ve ever seen,” Spring steen told
a radio DJ. One night, Spring-
steen snuck up to the roof of
a nearby building with Tall-
ent and saxophonist Clarence
Clemons. Armed with cans of
black spray paint, Springsteen
hoisted himself onto Clemons’
massive shoulders and wrote
“Prove It All Night E Street”
across the entire thing. “We
didn’t deface it,” says Tallent
with a laugh. “We corrected it.
That was our way of letting peo-
ple know to not expect the next
coming of Christ. It’s just a rock
& roll show.”
Darkness on the Edge of
To w n still wasn’t a commer-
cial hit by the end of the run,
but critics across the coun-
try hailed the tour as the best
of the year, and the album re-
mained at the core of Spring-
steen’s set list for dec ades to
come. “[They] are perhaps the
purest distillation of what I
wanted my rock & roll music to
be about,” Spring steen wrote.
“[On the last stand of the tour]
an exploding firecracker tossed
by an inebriated ‘fan’ opened up
a small slash underneath my
eye. A little blood’d been drawn,
but we were back.” ANDY GREENEBRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
AND THE E STREET BAND
AMERICAN
TOUR
1978
PROVING
IT EVERY
NIGHT
Four decades of electrifying
shows from an artist who
never took a night off‘Born to Run’ Tour 1975
New E Streeters Steven Van
Zandt, Max Weinberg and Roy
Bittan helped Springsteen live
up to the insane hype of Born
to Run and bring its wall of
sound to life night after night.‘Ghost of Tom
Joad’ Tour 1995-97
Springsteen hit theatres armed
with an acoustic guitar and
delivered spare, powerful
renditions of his songs. After a
down period, the tour rebooted
his entire career.The E Street
Reunion 1999-2000
Ten years after Springsteen
fired his most famous band,
they all came back together
for an emotional tour. “We did
a run at MSG that was so over-
the-top,” says Weinberg. “Some
of the best shows we ever did.”‘Working on a
Dream’ Tour 2009
The final tour before the
death of Clemons featured
performances of Springsteen’s
classic records, ending with
Greetings From Asbury Park,
N.J. It was the perfect way to
say goodbye to the Big Man.July, 2017 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 67GETTY IMAGES