Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
featuring the Miami Horns
Veterans Memorial Coliseum
New Haven, CT
March 18, 1977

“Official Audience Recording”
Nothing to Lose: The 1977 Tour Revisited Vol. Five
JEMS Archive

JEMS 2015 Transfers

Tracks 1-3: CB master cassette > Nakamichi CR-7A (azimuth adjustment) > Sound Devices USBPre 2 > Audacity 2.0 (24/96) capture > iZotope RX4 > Peak 6.0 with iZotope Ozone 5 > iZotope RX MBIT+ resample 16/44.1 > Peak Pro XT (edit / index) > xACT 2.21 > FLAC

Tracks 3-13: Low generation cassette > 1994 DAT > Fostex D-5 > Sound Devices UBSPre2 > iZtotope RX > pitch correction > iZotope Ozone and MBIT+ convert to 16/44.1 .wav > Peak Pro XT (volume smoothing / patch / edit / index) > xACT 2.21 > FLAC

01 Night
02 Don’t Look Back
03 Spirit in the Night
04 It’s My Life
05 Thunder Road
06 Mona > She’s the One
07 Tenth Avenue Freeze-out (w/ Miami Horns)
08 Action in the Streets (w/ Miami Horns)
09 Backstreets
10 Jungleland
11 Rosalita (w/Miami Horns)
12 Born to Run
13 Quarter to Three (w/ Miami Horns)

Known Faults:

• Night: alternate source
• Don’t Look Back: alternate source
• Spirit In The Night: first 3:22 patched with alternate source
• She’s The One: 18 seconds patched with alternate source

Welcome to the fifth chapter of JEMS’ Nothing to Lose series revisiting Bruce’s remarkable 1977 tour. For the full history of our obsession with this era and the back story on these “Official Audience Tapes,” please refer to the notes in Vol. One found here:

http://jungleland.dnsalias.com/torrents-details.php?id=38539

Installment No. 5 brings Springsteen to New Haven, Connecticut, as the tour settles into its final shows in the northeast, six of which are still to follow. For me, this is a period of near perfection in terms of the caliber of the performances and the sense of urgency that’s palpable in the recordings.

There may be only 13 songs in the set, but Bruce and the band are making every one of them count. My typical listening to material from ’77 has tended to focus on the unique songs, like “Action in the Streets” and “It’s My Life.” But in preparing this show, I was struck by just how good the “standard” songs are. Bruce sings “Spirit in the Night” and “Thunder Road” with every bit as much conviction as he does “Don’t Look Back,” and we all know how special “Backstreets” is every night in ’77. Fresh ears also picked out a lot of distinctive guitar work from Steve and Bruce that I felt I had never noticed before. “We tore it apart and put it together again” indeed.

New Haven is the final “official audience” source in the JEMS Archive. I consider it the best recording of the five, sounding just a bit closer, sharper and with better instrument separation than the previous four. It came to us from a different source than the first four (an insider, not a collector), so it may also be a generation to the good comparitively. But it is incomplete, joined in progress during “Spirit.”

Happily, our pal CB taped the show as well and loaned us his master cassettes. The CB source was previously released by Fanatic; we did a fresh transfer for this release. CB told me he taped from the back of the arena and it sounds like it, but the recording is still clear and fills in what’s missing from the better source to give us the complete New Haven show. Samples provided.

Special thanks yet again to: M and J from JEMS for pulling out our many versions of these DATs and helping make new transfers; to CB, one of “The Original Two” who got the whole Springsteen taping hobby started; the folks on the Stone Pony message board whose thread sparked this series; and to mjk5510 who takes our bits and bobs and gets them all pretty for you.

When the ’77 series returns, we’ll revisit Toronto, Detroit and Toledo, all from fresh master transfers. Until then, enjoy New Haven, and better still, add your thoughts about the show and the recording in the comments.

BK for JEMS