Bruce Springsteen 1974-05-09 Harvard Square Theatre Cambridge, MA(JEMS)

Bruce Springsteen
Harvard Square Theatre
Cambridge, MA
May 9, 1974 7:00 PM show

Taping Gear: Sony TC-55 with built in condenser mic and auto level control

JEMS 2013 transfer: SH master cassettes > Nakamichi CR-7A > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Peak 6.0 with iZotope Ozone > .wav (24/96) > resample via iZotope MBIT+ to .wav (16/44) > xACT to FLAC

Springsteen Soundcheck
01 The E Street Shuffle
02 Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street?

Springsteen Set
03 Intro
04 New York City Serenade
05 Spirit In The Night
06 I Sold My Heart To The Junkman
07 Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street?
08 It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City
09 The E Street Shuffle
10 Kitty's Back
11 Rosalita

At the request of Steve Hopkins himself, JEMS is pleased to present this legendary double bill of Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt for the first time "as it happened." Our torrent contains every minute Hopkins recorded that fateful night in Cambridge 39 years ago next week, from Springsteen's soundcheck through the entire early show of the night featuring Springsteen's complete set followed by Bonnie Raitt's complete set. Both artists performed a 10 PM late show as well, but there are no known recordings of those sets, because, as Hopkins notes below, he was unsuccessful getting back into the venue.

The late show is, of course, the stuff of legend, as it was that (presumably unrecorded) set that prompted then-critic and future Bruce manager Jon Landau to write a rave review of Springsteen in The Real Paper which changed both of their lives forever. For years, fans sentimentally attributed this recording to the late show Landau saw, but it is in fact the early set. Landau's review says Springsteen performed "three new songs, all of them street trash rockers"--this set features no new songs, save for the only known recording of the wonderful cover, "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman."

As Hopkins' himself wrote in his original post of the show: "This is a new transfer of a recording that has been in circulation for many years, my first Springsteen show. I got in early with a friend who had a press pass. It was a general admission show and the first few rows were roped off for the press, so I sat down front and center and stayed there for the entire early show. Contrary to [long-held assumptions], this is the complete early show and "Rosalita" was the final song of the set. Unfortunately, they cleared the house after the early show, and as the crowd was lined up around the block for the late show, I was unable to get back in. In the span of about 26 hours, I saw Boz Scaggs, Steve Miller, Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt, all for under $10."

Steve first torrented both sets from his master cassettes five years ago, but that lineage went from cassette to DAT to CD-R then ripped back into FLAC. This is the first time Steve's master tapes have been digitized directly.

Arguably, this is one of the best audience recordings of the Boom Carter era of the E Street Band, not up to Hopkins' later standard when his gear improved, but still a wonderful snapshot of an under-documented era just the same. It's hard to imagine an opening act whose set includes two 13-minute songs and another that's nearly 10 minutes long, then again this was 1974. Hopkins points out a "loud electrical buzz emanating from the stage throughout the show, mostly noticeable during quieter segments." It is worse in Bonnie's set than Bruce's, and you can tune it out, but it is annoying at times. Samples provided.

Performances of those epic songs--"New York City Serenade," "Kitty's Back" and "Rosalita" respectively--are particularly strong here, but what I took special note of is "Saint in the City," which features a kind of spoken-word rap at the end that echoes the one on the circulating alternate take of the track from the Greetings sessions.

What's also gone under appreciated is the wonderful, talkative performance Raitt turns in this night. In hindsight, the Harvard Square Theatre show feels like a major Bruce Springsteen moment, but Raitt was the headliner and her star was rising faster than Bruce's at the time. Here's she's touring in support of her third album, Takin' My Time, released the previous October. The set is laden with wonderful covers of songs penned by Randy Newman, Jackson Browne, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Chris Smither and Mose Allison to name a few.

But even Bonnie recognized something special had occured. Before her first song she says of Springsteen, "He's got the most incredible band and he's one of the most amazing people I've ever heard. I just had to say that. He's a real hard act to follow."

Thanks yet again to Steve Hopkins for allowing JEMS to present his outstanding audience recordings in a fresh light. 

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