Sunday, April 6, 2008

Boot Tracker, August 21, 1978, Madison Square Garden

As Marvin Gaye once said there's a few things in life for sure, death, trouble and taxes. Luckily you can also depend on EV2 to take away the sting. I don't know how they do it but they deliver the goods nearly every time. "Big Time Rock And Roll" seeding at the dime right now is another instance where they struck gold. The boys from EV2 have worked their magic on an audience recording recently made available by Mister Anonymous on Fanatic records. One of their more messy releases that made for an interesting nice quality audience recording but not much more. The re-master of that source now sounds like an soundboard or FM sourced boot. What I've been listening to over the last couple of hours can compete with the holy trinity of Winterland, Passaic or the Agora. At the very least it is on the same level as the often neglected Charleston August 4th sound board recording. There are a few sound drops, especially at the beginning, but nothing bad.

The Darkness tour is often seen as the peak in Springsteen's career. Quite a few fans claim that Springsteen never reached quite the same heights again both creatively and live. I think much of that reputation has to do with the wealth of bootleg material available from that tour. The FM shows have made it possible to have fan material available at (near) album quality. Of course the intro to "Prove It All Night" or the infamous interludes during "Backstreets" helped this tour's reputation along a bit as well. Funnily enough though I do not really own a whole lot of Darkness bootlegs. The FM shows cast their shadow over almost every other boot. There isn't really a need to own more. I think this bootleg may be among the exceptions. If you feel the need to deepen your Darkness Tour collection this is a very fine addition indeed. If only for the blistering versions of "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Sweet Little Sixteen" Springsteen throws at the crowd in this set. Of course "Not Fade Away" and "Gloria" leading into "She's The One" or the hilarious car chase during the "Growing Up" story help as well. As always EV2 fleshed out the discs with some high quality bonus tracks. In this case coming from the other two nights of the Boss' three night stand at the Garden in '78. Great art work two. Burn this one, put it in a jewel case and give it a proud spot in your bootleg collection.

Sound: 4,5 out of 5
Show: 5 out of 5
Artwork: 4 out of 5

"Sweet Little Sixteen mp3"
Download the show in mp3 format here

1 comment:

SoulBoogieAlex said...

It has just been brought to my attention that EV2 is just the one guy with his computer and a very good ear. Because of the volumes of work EV2 produces I've always assumed there must be more than one person working at those projects. But the bootlegs that habitually trump the Crystal Cat or Godfather releases are the work of one man! All that and he does it all for absolutely nothing! People, I am in awe.