Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen concert, Bruce Springsteen video, Music Calendar

Today: Bruce Springsteen played Agora Theatre and Ballroom (Cleveland, OH) in 1978 – 35 years ago

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Bruce springsteen agora 1978jpg

I consider Bruce’s Darkness Tour of 78 to be one of the greatest “tours” ever….

This concert is one of the best from the tour I’ve heard.. and Yes, it helps that it was broadcasted on the famous rock station: WMMS-FM…

Springsteen agora 1978

One of the reasons the 1978 Tour is so well-remembered, and often viewed as the peak of Springsteen and the E Street Band in concert, is that several complete shows were broadcast live on radio stations.

springsteen agora 78

Setlist:

  1. Summertime Blues
  2. Badlands
  3. Spirit in the night
  4. Darkness on the edge of town
  5. Factory
  6. The promised land
  7. Prove it all night [With long guitar intro]
  8. Racing in the street
  9. Thunder road
  10. Jungleland
    First set:
  11. Paradise by the C
  12. Fire
  13. Sherry darling
  14. Not fade away
  15. Gloria
  16. She’s the one
  17. Growin’ up
    here is Growin Up & Backstreets:
  18. Backstreets
  19. Rosalita (Come out tonight)
    Second set (“round two”):
  20. 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
  21. Born to run
  22. Because the night
  23. Raise your hand
  24. Twist and shout
From Brucebase: Soundboard and radio broadcast tapes (WMMS) available – great show. It’s interesting to note that this show was remastered by Bruce’s management and given to KSAN in San Francisco who broadcast it as a replacement for a scheduled Winterland rebroadcast sometime in 1979. The remastered show has fantastic stereo separation and coupled with the fact that this is a good show in the first place, it has to rank as one of the best of the available shows in 1978. Clarence’s intro during “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” contains a snippet of The Village People’s hit “Macho Man”. Released on LP and CD. The most recent (and best quality) CD releases of this show are ‘Agora Night’ by Crystal Cat and ‘Just In Time For Summer’. ‘Agora Night’ is from the Pre-FM reels. Also available on CD ‘Agora 1978’ from Supersonic.

 

 

 

From brucespringsteen.it:Max Weinberg, many years ago said this was the best show the E Street Band ever did. Broadcast on WMMS and about 9 other FM stations It was a free concert for WMMS’ 10th Anniversary as a radio station. The introduction by Kid Leo and the final chords of Twist and Shout.

Springsteen - Aug9-78

From Wikipedia:Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s Darkness Tour was a concert tour of North America that ran from May 1978 through the rest of the year, in conjunction with the release of Springsteen’s album Darkness on the Edge of Town. (Like most Springsteen tours it had no official name, but this is the most commonly used; it is also sometimes referred to as the Darkness on the Edge of Town Tour or most simply the 1978 Tour.)The tour has since become viewed as perhaps Springsteen’s best in a storied career of concert performances. Biographer Dave Marsh wrote in 1987, “The screaming intensity of those ’78 shows are part of rock and roll legend in the same way as Dylan’s 1966 shows with the Band, the Rolling Stones’ tours of 1969 and 1972, and the Who’s Tommy tour of 1969: benchmarks of an era.”

 

 

 

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Country, Film, Johnny Cash

Documentary: Johnny Cash – The Last Great American

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johnnycash

This a very fine documentary profiling the life of Johnny Cash. There are quite a few films about Cash, this is one of the very best.

It is a  major retrospective of Cash’s life, times and music. It features contributions from Rosanne Cash(daughter) and John Carter Cash (son), his longtime manager Lou Robin and many musicians including Little Richard, Cowboy Jack Clement, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard and Elvis Costello.

Johnny Cash was the son of a sharecropper from Arkansas, who sang folk, gospel and country songs to himself while picking cotton in the fields. In the 50s he signed to Sam Phillips’ Sun Records, the rest is great music history.

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This is the centre-piece of an extensive Johnny Cash Night on BBC Four. A major retrospective of Cash’s life, times and music, it includes contributions from his daughter, Rosanne Cash, and son, John Carter Cash; his long-time manager, Lou Robin; and fellow musicians, including Little Richard, Cowboy Jack Clement, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard and Elvis Costello.

Cash was the son of a sharecropper from Kingsland, Arkansas, who sang folk, spiritual and country songs to himself while picking cotton in the fields. In the Fifties he signed to Sam Phillips’s Sun Records, scored his first hits and was part of the “Million Dollar Quartet” with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.

In the Sixties he created his famous Man In Black persona and became a huge country music star with hits such as Folsom Prison Blues, Ring Of Fire, I Walk The Line and A Boy Named Sue. At that time he was also torn between drug dependency, hell-raising and a powerful spirituality. Cash had long since established himself as a man of the people with his prison concerts, beginning with an incendiary performance in San Quentin.

He ended the decade by finally marrying June Carter, daughter of the legendary Carter family, launching his own national TV series from Nashville, duetting with Bob Dylan, befriending the Native American movement and opposing the war in Vietnam while playing concerts for the soldiers in the field.

Although plagued by ill-health, Cash reignited his career with a new, young audience in the Nineties, when he began to record with Def Jam’s producer, Rick Rubin.

Cash won numerous Grammys and other awards for his last studio album, 2003’s The Man Comes Around, and the extraordinary video for the Nine Inch Nails song, Hurt, which revealed Cash as a white-haired old man contemplating his mortality.

Cash died in September 2003 shortly after the retrospective Unearthed, a five CD-set of the acoustic performances with which he resurrected his career in the last decade of his life, and after losing his wife in June 2003.
– docuwiki.net

– Hallgeir

Jason Isbell, video of the day

Video of the day: Stockholm by Jason Isbell

stockholm

Jason Isbell does a tremendous live version of his song Stockholm on Letterman about a week ago (23 July).

Garden and Gun wrote:

“As his career has progressed, Isbell has garnered a collection of rabid fans, including David Letterman, who was turned on to him by fellow artist Patty Griffin. Since then Isbell has played Letterman’s show a number of times, and has flown out to Letterman’s Montana ranch to perform at his annual Fourth of July bash.”

It’s a fantastic song and a great performance!

– Hallgeir

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

Bob Dylan – 6th & last recording session for Highway 61 Revisited – 4 August 1965

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“I never wanted to write topical songs,…. Have you heard my last two records, Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61? It’s all there. That’s the real Dylan.”
~Bob Dylan (to Frances Taylor – Aug 1965)

“If you had to sum up Highway 61 Revisited in a single sentence, suffice it to say that it is the album that invented attitude and raised it to an art form. Just take a look at the cover. Nobody from Johnny Rotten to Eminem has done it better to this day.
~Nigel Williamson (The Rough Guide To Bob Dylan)

Studio A
Columbia Recording Studios
New York City, New York
4 August 1965
The 6th & last Highway 61 Revisited session, produced by Bob Johnston

Overdub session with Bob Dylan (guitar) and Charlie McCoy (guitar, bass).

One final session was held on August 4, again at Studio A. Most of the session was devoted to completing “Desolation Row”. Johnston has related that Nashville musician Charlie McCoy was visiting New York, and he invited McCoy to play guitar at the session. According to some sources, seven takes of “Desolation Row” were recorded, and takes six and seven were spliced together for the master recording.McCoy holding a microphone onstage

Nashville sessions musician Charlie McCoy’s chance visit to New York resulted in the guitar flourishes accompanying “Desolation Row”, the last track on the album.

~Wikipedia

Songs:

  1. Desolation Row
  2. Desolation Row
  3. Desolation Row
  4. Desolation Row
  5. Desolation Row
  6. Desolation Row
    6 and 7 edited into one track and released 30 August 1965

    —
  7. Desolation Row
  8. Tombstone Blues

–

Recorded 1-4 pm.

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Related articles @ JV:

References:

-Egil

Live, Sound, Van Morrison

Johannasvisions on a roadtrip to see Van Morrison at Notodden Blues Festival

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Van_Morrison_at_Notodden_Blues_Festival
Photo: Jarle Vines (Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike 3.0)

I have finally seen Van Morrison in concert, and I’m going around with a big grin on my face. It was better than I could hope for. I had heard a lot about how his concerts could be hit or miss affairs, and I was a bit afraid that we would end up with a miss. We did not!

We jumped in the car at 9:30 in the morning on Friday 2 August and drove to Notodden, this took nearly 6 hours with some stops along the way (and a few hiccups in the traffic). We drove through fantastic mountain scenery and listened to Van’s music and had interesting discussions on his music (and life in general).

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We put up the tent at the official Blues-camp, drank some wine/beer/whisky and headed over to the concert area.

Van Morrison had asked for James Hunter Six to be support act to his own show, they did a good job. They sound better live than on record, but the best ones always do.

jim hunter six

Minute by Minute from their latest album, Minute by Minute was the high point for me, great singing and good fun!

Then there was a short wait until the main attraction would come on stage. The band came out and started Celtic Swing, Morrison joined them and the stage was set. This instrumental sounded tight and good, and the main man played some fine sax. The band consists of seasoned musicians and they played brilliantly through the concert.

I will not go through all the songs, but it was a good set, it was a great set. The last half of the concert was incredibly good. Van Morrison smiled and even told a joke (!): The horns were in the middle of a particular grandiose (even pretentious) part of I Can’t stop loving you when Van points his arm in their direction and declares, “The Bert Kaempfert Orchestra!”, then grins and says, ” almost like the real thing”. Funny guy!

van morrison notodden

James Hunter joined them on stage for two rousing renditions of Help me and Gloria. It was one of the best concerts I’ve seen this year.

Set list (I’ve marked my favorites with an * ):

1. Celtic Swing
2. Got to go back
3. Only a dream
4. Keep mediocrity at bay
5. Pagan Heart *
6. Baby Please don’t Go/Boogie Chillen/Rock Island Line
7. What am I living for
8. Playhouse
9. Born to sing *
10. Going down to Monte Carlo
11. Moondance
12. Brown Eyed Girl
13. Jackie Wilson Said
14. That’s Life
15. Whenever God Shines his light *
16. Can’t Stop Loving You *
17. Help Me *  w/ James Hunter
18. Gloria *  w/ James Hunter

Van Morrison told us we had been a fantastic audience, danced (yep) off the stage and the band finished an extended Gloria. It was fantastic!

We saw/heard Little Andrew (parts of it anyway) – didn’t do it for us, Beth Hart, well, one of our principles here at JV is not to write about things we don’t like, therefore I will not say anything about her performance.  Late on Friday night we saw The Royal Southern Brotherhood, a band with great potential, a good group of musicians but their songs don’t match their skillful playing. A very promising band none the less!

We went down to our tent around two in the morning, and some fucker on a bus played bad trance music until five! Why do all the guys with the largest loudspeakers have the worst taste in music? I seriously considered throwing rocks at them around the time the power went out in the morning. Then came the rain, the worst downpour  we have seen in quite a long time. First time camping in a tent in at least 15 years and all this!  We woke up at around ten. 5 good hours of sleep 🙂

We saw Ida Jenshus and here incredible band before the drive home. I’ve said most of the fine things that has to be said about Jenshus and her band, and again they gave us a wonderful concert. They ended the show with a fantastic version of Neil Young’s Words (from Harvest). Then and there all the noise from those trance loving idiots and the bad weather from the night were forgotten. It had all been worth it.

ida jenshus
Phot from Ida Jenshus’ Official Facebook Page

We had a great time and I am still smiling!

– Hallgeir