BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND : THE LEGENDARY 1979 NO NUKES CONCERTS

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND : THE LEGENDARY 1979 NO NUKES CONCERTS

Disc One (45:58)

Prove It All Night
Badlands
The Promised Land
The River
Sherry Darling
Thunder Road
Jungleland

Disc Two (44:10)

Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
Born To Run
Stay (with Tom Petty & Jackson Browne)
Detroit Medley : Devil With The Blue Dress On / Good Golly Miss Molly / C.C. Rider / Jenny Take A Ride
Quarter To Three
Rave On

Label : Columbia Records

Venue : Madison Square Gardens, New York City, New York, USA

Recording Date : September 21 & 22, 1979

Release Date : November 19, 2021

Review (AllMusic) : Bruce Springsteen's social and political activism is well known enough in 2021 that many forget he seemed largely apolitical in the early stages of his career. That began to change with 1978's Darkness on the Edge of Town, which didn't confront specific issues but delivered a powerful portrait of blue-collar malaise in a nation where the working class was being forgotten. His deep dive into singing for a cause came in 1979, when Musicians United for Safe Energy, a coalition of artists and music industry figures campaigning against nuclear power, persuaded Springsteen to take part in a series of concerts being held at New York's Madison Square Garden to raise funds and awareness for their work. In most respects, Springsteen was the odd man out at the MUSE shows (which were recorded and filmed for an album and documentary, both titled No Nukes), where, with the exception of Bruce and Tom Petty, the bill was dominated by soft rockers like Jackson Browne, James Taylor, and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Springsteen didn't do any anti-nuclear speechifying in his two sets at the MUSE shows, but he gave his performances a force, conviction, and passion that outstripped every other act on the bill and made him the highlight of No Nukes. The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts, released in 2021, cuts and pastes Springsteen's two MUSE shows into a single performance, and it's an excellent document of a period where he reliably delivered one of the very best live shows on earth. Since they were playing on a bill with several other acts, Springsteen and the E-Street Band had to condense their usually three-hour concert into a tight 90 minutes; they were determined to pack their typical amount of sweat and excitement into their set, and judging from these recordings, they succeeded. The versions of "The River" (then unreleased -- the show took place during a break from the session for The River) and "The Promised Land" lend an appropriate gravitas to the event, but for the most part Springsteen and the band saw it was their duty to give the audience top value for money. From the opening blast of "Prove It All Night" to a final lead through Buddy Holly's "Rave On," they play like a ball of fire, and the fans are with them every step of the way. Given its relative brevity, The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts is a different animal than most of Springsteen's live releases, but that works in its favor -- it doesn't aim to reproduce the ebb and flow of his usual concert experience, instead aiming for an all-killer, no-filler experience, and it leaves no doubt why the audience got so caught up in this music.

Review (Humo) : Op 21 en 22 september 1979 stonden Bruce Springsteen en zijn E Street Band in Madison Square Garden voor de zogenoemde No Nukes-concerten. 42 jaar later is een compilatie van beide New Yorkse avonden verkrijgbaar op drie schijfjes: twee cd's en één dvd of blu-ray. 'The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts' opent met een verschroeiend 'Prove It All Night', en die mantra spookte vermoedelijk ook door Springsteens 29-jarige hoofd: hij was hongerig, hypergetalenteerd en klaar om alles te bewijzen. Na doorbraakplaat 'Born to Run' had hij door legale problemen drie jaar stilgelegen toen 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' in 1978 verscheen. Op de 'No Nukes'-concerten promootte hij die plaat, maar hij serveerde ook al voorproefjes van 'The River', de dubbelaar die in 1980 zou volgen. De show is amper vijf minuten bezig wanneer hij uitpakt met een verzengende gitaarsolo die doet vrezen dat iemand hem aan de kant van het podium staat te bedreigen. Ook 'The Promised Land' begint monumentaal - die mondharmonica! - en bevat met 'The dogs on mainstreet howl/'Cause they understand/If I could take one moment into my hands' één van de meest waarachtige frasen die hij al neerpende. Voor het geheel na nog een duik in 'The River' té terneerdrukkend dreigt te worden, haalt de duivel uit New Jersey uit: 'Let me hear some party noises!' De dertien gekozen tracks zijn een mix van donker en dansbaar. 'Sherry Darling', één van Springsteens zeldzame oprecht vrolijke nummers. Moet u 'No Nukes' in huis halen als u 'Live in Barcelona', 'Live in Dublin', 'Live in Hyde Park' e tutti quanti al in uw kast hebt staan? Misschien niet. Een handvol covers ('Stay', 'Quarter to Three') en de 'Detroit Medley' zijn aardig, maar niet essentieel. Ijkpunten als 'Thunder Road' en 'Jungleland' staan even pakkend op 'Hammersmith Odeon London '75'. Wie meer obscure parels wil, is beter af met 'Live in NYC'. En wie net als ondergetekende een boon heeft voor het misbegrepen meesterwerk 'Lucky Town', komt met 'MTV Plugged' aan zijn trekken. Wél ontegensprekelijk positief is de prettige hoeveelheid korrel en vuil die het 16mm-beeldmateriaal bevat. Ook het geluid is piekfijn, met dank aan Bob Clearmountain (bekend van de Stones, Hall & Oates en Soulsister). 'No Nukes' is een verzorgde uitgave van een grote meneer in bloedvorm, en voor Boss-neofieten een prima startpunt.

Review (Pitchfork) : With a setlist structured like a party, this new concert film and live album from a charity gig at Madison Square Garden showcase Bruce and the band at full roar. The word "legendary" might seem too weighty for a performance given at a charity gig that was quintessentially of its time. Unlike the Concert for Bangladesh or Live Aid, the No Nukes benefit concerts didn't leave a lasting cultural footprint-yet the two Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band shows at Madison Square Garden, now consolidated on a new concert film and live album, The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts, do flesh out a pivotal moment in Springsteen's rise to superstardom, providing the first professionally recorded and filmed glimpse of the E Street Band at full roar. The performance also represents the first time Springsteen dipped his toe into political activism, an element that would eventually become a signature part of his public persona. Springsteen wasn't one of the founders of Musicians United for Safe Energy, the organization that launched the No Nukes concerts in the fall of 1979. Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt, and John Hall (a member of the soft-rock outfit Orleans, best known for their 1976 hit "Still the One," who would later be elected to the House of Representatives) formed MUSE in the wake of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, a disaster that had consumed headlines that spring. The Three Mile Island tragedy inspired Springsteen's "Roulette," a cathartic shot of dread that was the first song cut during the sessions for his 1980 album The River but lay dormant until it was released as a B-side in 1988. Springsteen wrote "Roulette" in the first person, concentrating on the human toll of the nuclear power plant meltdown instead of its politics and, in effect, that's how he approached the No Nukes concerts, too. He avoided the spotlight in the promotional events leading up to the September shows, and he didn't do much in the way of actual activism during his association with MUSE. He attended the photo shoot that resulted in a 1979 Rolling Stone cover touting the concerts, but he didn't attend the accompanying press conference or issue a statement about nuclear energy. He simply joined the bill, consented to be filmed and recorded for the subsequent benefit album and documentary, and that was more than enough: The tickets to his two headlining shows sold out in an hour. Those swift sales show how Springsteen was already a beloved figure in the New York area, and The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts teems with the exhilaration of the mutual adoration of artist and audience. The E Street Band seem as thrilled to play the gig as the crowd is to see it: They'd spent the better part of the year cooped up in the studio sweating over an album called The Ties That Bind, and in September 1979, its completion seemed imminent, though Springsteen later pulled it in favor of the eventual double album The River. The studio fog lifted as they finally hit the stage on September 21, 1979, just before Springsteen's 30 birthday. Bruce alludes to his advancing age during the No Nukes shows, saying that he "can't go on like this, I'm 30 years old! My heart's about to go on me!" And yet he appears impossibly youthful and muscular as he leads the E Street Band through a marathon taken at the speed of a sprint. As seen in the film, Springsteen is restless-jumping, dancing, and prowling-and his passion translates on record. It helps that the setlist is structured as a party, opening with an intense blast of Darkness on the Edge of Town material before the stark ballad "The River" receives its stage debut. The concert's quietest moment, "The River" drew upon the story of his sister's teenage pregnancy and pointed toward a deepening sense of songwriting craft, one he'd develop further on the haunted, folky Nebraska. Here, it's accompanied by another new tune called "Sherry Darling," a boisterous, funny rocker which sends frat-party rhythms down to the Jersey Shore. "Sherry Darling" leads a steady escalation in energy and vigor, paved by a pair of Born to Run songs about escape ("Thunder Road," "Jungleland") and followed by a joyous "Rosalita" and a rapturous "Born to Run." From there, Springsteen finds deliverance in a set of rock'n'roll oldies, inviting Jackson Browne and Tom Petty for a version of Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs' "Stay"-a song Browne rewrote into a medley with "The Load Out" on Running on Empty. The E Street Band then crash into a breathless 25-minute run through "Detroit Medley," Gary U.S. Bonds' "Quarter to Three," and Buddy Holly's "Rave On!" Propelled by Max Weinberg's hard swing, they take the time to showcase Clarence Clemons' R&B sax and the careening keys of Danny Federici and Roy Bittan, elements that evoke memories of golden oldies but are transformed by the group's intensity. Springsteen would refine this aesthetic on The River, leading to his first smash hit with "Hungry Heart," but The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts offers an uncut dose of pure rock'n'roll. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band were by then amassing a deep catalog, but they remained connected with their audience through the common vernacular of old hits. Those familiar choruses and hooks are warhorses, but the E Street Band uses them as a vehicle for transcendence. Years of similar performances haven't diminished the power of this one: It has a distinctive blend of magic and might, the sound of a band who knows they've hit their stride and still gets giddy at the noise they make. It's a bar band delivering communion.