Bruce Springsteen – Shout Until You’re Satisfied (Eat A Peach EAP 19/20)

Shout Until You’re Satisfied (Eat A Peach EAP 19/20)

Richfield Coliseum, Richfield, OH, USA – 17 February, 1977

Disc 1: Night, Rendezvous, Spirit In The Night, It’s My Life, Thunder Road, Mona/She’s The One, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, Action In The Streets, Backstreets

Disc 2: Jungleland, Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), Baby I Love You, Walking In The Rain, Say Goodbye To Hollywood, Be My Baby, Born To Run, Quarter To Three

Bonus tracks: Fox Theater, St. Lous, MO, USA – 28 February, 1977: Backstreets; Sports Arena, Toledo, OH, USA – 10 March, 1977: Something In The Night

The show from Richfield is noted for the appearance of Ronnie Spector for the first four songs of the encore and this portion of the show has circulated for some time, appearing among the six bonus  tracks on Unbelievable Music’s 2-CD release of the Milwaukee show of 22 February, Action In The Streets. (The other two bonus tracks come from Toronto on 13 February.)  They also featured on the Doberman label’s 3-CD-R compilation of live material from 1977, Higher And Higher.

Of this show, Brucebase states: “Audience tape. Two recording sources circulate…A second high quality source entered into wide circulation in February 2015 (JEMS) as ‘Nothing To Lose: The 1977 Tour Revisited Volume One’.  This second recording is the so called ‘official audience recording’ recorded by the sound crew using open air mics.  Four songs are missing from this recording, a patched version using a low generation source of the first source is available.”

Notes “by BK for JEMS” on Jungleland give further details of this and the other “official audience recordings” as follows:

“In the early 1990s, an active and well-connected SoCal trader told JEMS he had obtained four such official audience recordings from someone with ties to the ’77 crew: Richfield, OH, February 17; Milwaukee February 22; St. Louis February 28; Towson, MD March 13.  Those tapes were subsequently loaned to us, DAT copies were made and not only added to the JEMS archive but selectively traded back in the day.  Given the era, copies eventually made there [sic] way to bootleggers and the Milwaukee set and parts of Richfield wound up on a bootleg CD.

Because of that, I had always presumed all four were widely circulating, but I have come to understand that is not the case. There’s also evidence of a fifth official audience recording, New Haven 3/18. Given we had the original DATs in hand, three of our own masters from the tour, and some first generation DATs of other masters it seemed only right to launch a ’77 series, with Richfield the kick-off.

Memories have faded as to why Richfield isn’t complete, missing what feels like one 45-minute side of tape from the middle of the show. But what is there provides a good example of these ’77 official audies, with rich, full sound, no nearby audience noise and a wide, consistent stereo image.

…The official audience source drops in the waning moments of ‘She’s the One’ and picks up at the start of the famous encore [so that five songs are from the alternative source, rather than four as Brucebase states]…

JEMS had long had the missing 45 minutes from a second source, but we were pleased to learn our brother from another mother, mjk5510, was in possession of a much lower generation copy of the same second source markedly superior to our copy.  Together, you get the entire show save for a few seconds of ‘She’s the One’ in very listenable quality, and giving us a fine start to our series.”

She’s The One fades out just before the end, but there is also clearly a brief cut in Rosalita and I also discerned a tiny cut at the end of Jungleland.  The alternative sound source is clearly a step down from the “official audience recording,” though still very listenable.

The “bootleg CD” BK refers to is Milwaukee 1977 (already reviewed), which adds Born To Run to the four Spector numbers, giving a total of five bonus tracks from the Richfield concert (the two Toronto tracks included on Action In The Streets are omitted).  The JEMS torrents also stimulated two releases of the complete Richfield performance, the 4-CD-R title Say Goodbye To Hollywood (Midnight Dreamer), which pairs it with the St. Louis show mentioned above, and, of course, Shout Until You’re Satisfied.

“The set pulls you right in,” BK argues, “with a cracking ‘Night’ rolling right into ‘Rendezvous,’ a lively ‘Spirit’ and one of the tour’s show-stopping highlights, the epic ‘It’s My Life.'”  The latter song is given a searingly intense performance, including a particularly atmospheric version of the spoken intro detailing the younger Springsteen’s conflict with his father, which contrasts markedly with the splendidly vivacious rendition of Spirit In The Night.  A full-band Thunder Road, with a brief additional piano intro, is followed by a spirited She’s The One, prefaced, as so often, with Mona (featuring tubular bells and some nice guitar work at the start).  The appearance of the faux-Miami Horns enhances a vivacious Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out and they remain for a bouncy Action In The Streets.  The first disc then concludes with Backstreets, complete with a particularly impassioned version of the spoken “Sad Eyes” interlude and the return of the tubular bells.

A splendid performance of the epic Jungleland opens the second disc and this is followed by a barnstorming Rosalita, which, of course, contains the band introductions and also sees the return of the horn section.

Then comes the unique encore.  Ronnie Spector had joined Springsteen to sing the three Ronettes hits at New York’s Palladium on 4 November 1976 (the last show of that year), but here, in the words of Brucebase, we also get, “her about-to-be-released single ‘Say Goodbye To Hollywood,’ the studio version of which had been recorded with Bruce & The E Street Band just a few weeks earlier (with Miami Steve producing).”  Additionally, Springsteen and Spector were joined by Flo & Eddie, who were later to contribute backing vocals to Hungry Heart.  The encore concludes with an exciting Born To Run and a gloriously ebullient Quarter To Three, again with a fine contribution from the horns.

The first bonus track, from St. Louis, is Backstreets.  Why, you may ask, has Eat A Peach included as a bonus a song performed during the main show?  BK would seem to provide the answer, referring to, “a particularly gripping ‘Backstreets,’ played here at a much slower pace than you’re used to…perhaps because it is so heavy with emotion,” as evidenced by the “God’s Angels” section of the spoken interlude.  BK notes of the sound quality for this show, also from the JEMS torrent of an “official audience recording,” that, “you will likely find the sound quality here to be a step up from Richfield/Vol. One.  It is closer and fuller,” making this the best sounding song on this release.

The second bonus track, from Toledo, is Something In The Night, returning to the set list for the first time since it opened the show in Detroit on 15 February and featuring a trumpet solo from Steve Paraczky.  (The show is also noteworthy for containing the first known performance of Don’t Look Back, as the first concert of 1977 not to include It’s My Life and as the only one to feature Jungleland in the encore.)  The sound here, sourced from an audience recording which has circulated for some time on CD-R) is less impressive, but still very good overall.

The packaging consists of Eat A Peach’s usual single card sleeve, within which are two inner sleeves housing the discs and a four-page foldover insert with notes credited to “Billy Devon.”  These collectively feature a variety of onstage and posed photographs, some including Spector, all the more effective for being in black-and-white.  Two of the shots on the inner sleeves show Springsteen on a motorcycle and details from these are reproduced on the discs themselves.  Overall, the packaging looks most handsome.

First choice for 1977 shows remains with the four-night stand in Boston which closed the tour.  These stunning performances, captured in excellent sound by taper Steve Hopkins, have emerged in two incarnations (no label and Godfather – both already reviewed).  However, as I wrote in my review of the Milwaukee show, “I have a great liking for the 1977 shows…Recordings reveal them to be energetic, exciting and most definitely enhanced by the addition of the horn section,” and I am happy to acquire as many of them as possible.  Richfield additionally contains the Ronnie Spector encore which helps to make it, as Brucebase states, a “magical show.”  Shout Until You’re Satisfied also has the benefits of impressive sound (for the most part), a judiciously chosen pair of bonus tracks and very attractive packaging, making it a release that Springsteen aficionados will want to add to their collections.