Bruce Springsteen – The Boston Godfather: The Definitive Boston March 1977 Tapes (Godfatherecords G.R. Box 17)

The Boston Godfather: The Definitive Boston March 1977 Tapes (Godfatherecords G.R. Box 17)

The Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA, USA – 22-25 March, 1977

Are You Ready For The King Of The World?

The Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA, USA – 22 March, 1977

Disc 1: Night, Don’t Look Back, Spirit in the Night, It’s My Life, Thunder Road, Mona/She’s the One, Tenth Avenue Freeze-out, Action in the Streets

Disc 2: Backstreets, Jungleland,  Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), Born to Run, The Promise, Quarter to Three, You Can’t Sit Down

Are You Hanging Loose?

The Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA, USA – 23 March, 1977

Disc 1: Night, Don’t Look Back, Spirit in the Night, Incident on 57th Street, Thunder Road, Mona/She’s the One, Tenth Avenue Freeze-out, Growin’ Up

Disc 2: Backstreets, Jungleland, Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), Born to Run, Quarter to Three, Little Latin Lupe Lu, You Can’t Sit Down

Are You Ready To Step Out?

The Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA, USA – 24 March, 1977

Disc 1: Night, Don’t Look Back, Spirit in the Night, Incident on 57th Street, Thunder Road, Mona/She’s the One, Tenth Avenue Freeze-out, Growin’ Up, It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City

Disc 2: Backstreets, Jungleland, Rosalita, Born to Run, Quarter to Three, Little Latin Lupe Lu, You Can’t Sit Down, (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher

Are You Ready For The Final Moment?

The Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA, USA – 24 March, 1977

Disc 1: Intro, Night, Don’t Look Back, Spirit In The Night, Incident On 57th Street, Thunder Road, Mona/She’s The One, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, Action In The Streets, It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City

Disc 2: Backstreets, Jungleland, Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), Born To Run

Disc 3: Audience, Quarter To Three, Little Latin Lupe Lu, You Can’t Sit Down, (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher

Hard on the heels of the no label releases Boston 1977: Are You Ready For The Final Moment? (featuring the show from 25th March) and Boston 1977: Legends From The Music Hall (containing the other three shows) comes Godfather’s handsome boxed set The Boston Godfather – The Definitive Boston March 1977 Tapes, which contains all four concerts.  As with the no label releases, Godfather’s source for these shows is the recently torrented Steve Hopkins master tapes.

I have recently reviewed both Boston 1977: Are You Ready For The Final Moment? and Boston 1977: Legends From The Music Hall and I also reviewed Godfather’s previous release of the final show some while back.  Readers are directed to those reviews for further details of the actual performances, together with some comments on the background to the concerts and previous CD releases.

Listening to the Godfather and no label releases reveals no significant differences in sound quality, which is excellent throughout.  However, The Boston Godfather: The Definitive Boston March 1977 Tapes has two distinct advantages.  Firstly, it collects all the shows into one set.  Secondly, and much more significantly, the packaging, in common with the other Godfather boxes, is gorgeous.  The box front and the front covers of the tri-fold sleeves of each individual concert set (as seen above) feature posed black-and-white photos of Springsteen taken by Eric Meola, the photographer who took the iconic shot of Springsteen and Clarence Clemons that features on the sleeve of Born To Run.  Several more appear in the twenty-page booklet.  These photographs appear in the book Streets of Fire: Bruce Springsteen in Photographs and Lyrics 1977-1979.  The four front covers also appear in miniature on the rear of the box, together with the track listings.  The individual sets and booklets feature appropriate onstage shots, some of which will be familiar from the no label sets.  There are also a couple of posed band shots, one of which also appeared on the packaging of Boston 1977: Are You Ready For The Final Moment? and another which was used in advertisements for the Darkness On The Edge Of Town album.  The sleeves of the four individual sets also reproduce Springsteen’s between-song comments as compiled by Johanna Pirttijärvi  and contained in the “Storyteller” section of the Brucebase website.  The booklet contains extensive notes charting “the most difficult years of Bruce Springsteen’s entire career,” and credited, as usual, to “Joe Roberts.”  The discs themselves reproduce the photograph from the box lid on the “label” side.  The overall effect is stunning.  These fantastic Boston shows are an essential acquisition for Springsteen collectors and the care taken over the production of this set makes The Boston Godfather: The Definitive Boston March 1977 Tapes the version to have.