Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Paramount Theatre
Portland, Oregon
June 24, 1978
(A JEMS Group Project)

Transfer: 1st Gen cassettes > DAT > DAT clone x 2 > .wav file > iZotope RX / ozone 9 (mastered) > xAct 2.59 > FLAC

01 Badlands
02 Night
03 Spirit In The Night
04 Darkness On The Edge Of Town
05 For You
06 The Promised Land
07 Prove It All Night
08 Racing In The Street
09 Thunder Road
10 Jungleland
11 By The �C�
12 Fire
13 Adam Raised A Cain
14 Mona > She�s The One
15 Growin' Up
16 Backstreets
17 Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
18 The Promise
19 Born To Run
20 Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
21 Quarter To Three

Known Faults:
-Backstreets: end cut

With the official release of the second night in Atlanta, we�re reminded how great Bruce Springsteen was in 1978. October 1 was largely unheard, obscured not only by inferior quality and missing the second half, but also by the first night, one of five FM radio broadcasts that year.

How, one might ask, did Springsteen and the E Street Band get that good? They were mission-oriented, for sure: the focus Springsteen brought to bear over the course of a relatively short tour is the stuff of legend. Every night could have been the one. Saginaw or Passaic? The Roxy or The Agora? How about either night in Atlanta?

Every fan has a favorite, and the Darkness tour presents choices, alright, whether FM broadcasts, great audience recordings, or ones that originated at the soundboard. This release falls in the last category, and it�s one you may know.

For years, it has circulated as Raising Cain, in a quality that we have come to regard as excellent. This upgrade presents a cleaner, low-generation edition of a very pleasing show recorded as the band made its way down the Pacific Coast.

The 23 songs performed on June 24 find the music climbing to cruising altitude. That�s part of the appeal, as is Springsteen�s matter-of-fact, conversational tone with an audience he seems to be probing, wondering aloud, for example, whether shops in the Northwest ever stocked �Greetings From Asbury Park.�

Like other soundboard recordings from this leg, including Kansas City (June 16, a previous upgrade), Portland seems to anticipate the July 7 FM radio broadcast from The Roxy. With three known �78 line recordings separated by a week, it�s not a stretch to conclude that someone wanted to hear how the music progressed as the Los Angeles radio date approached. Or as a dry run for Berkeley, where the tour�s first professional multi-track recording took place.

But Portland was no rehearsal. Listen anew for inner workings of the E Street Band, whether it�s Steve Van Zandt�s guitar on �For You� (which sounds prominent in this mix) or Clarence Clemons� saxophone on �Jungleland.� After intermission, things heat up with typical summer of �78 flair, stoked by a trio of unreleased songs, �Paradise by the �C�,� �Fire,� and �The Promise,� too. (That song appeared in many encores leading up to the FM broadcast from Los Angeles, after which it phased out.)

All Springsteen tours evolved, none more so than in 1978. As Bruce put in the sweat equity to build his audience, fans in the west became prime beneficiaries: the tour played 13 dates in June, July, and December (Portland, of course, got a return visit on December 19). The point that year was to �Prove It All Night,� and June 24 is no exception.

*******************************************

AK picks up the story on how we are fortunate to hear this upgraded version of the show:

6/24/78 was a DAT tape that had gone mysteriously missing from my collection for the last 22+ years. I vaguely remembered having a nice sounding DAT of the show allegedly made off of 1st generation cassettes. Unlike the circulating bootleg, I recalled the sound on the lost DAT tape being crisp and punchy. As time went on, I began to doubt whether the lost tape sounded as good as I remembered.

I was discussing this show with a friend and fellow trader and for whatever reason, I had an epiphany. Suddenly, I vividly remembered sitting on the floor at Tapewyrms�s house in Virginia in the mid to late 90�s combing thru a bunch of his cassettes. I remembered I was killing time waiting for the digital clone of 6/24/1978 I was making for him to complete.

I immediately sent a text to my long-lost friend Tapewyrm asking him if he still had the DAT clone of the illusive tape in his collection. He promptly wrote back that unfortunately he gave most of his DAT tapes away years ago to some of his friends and he will ask around. It sounded bleak, but I held out hope. Much to my surprise, an hour and 20 minutes later he sent me a picture of the 6/24/78 DAT. I couldn�t believe it. He had given the tape to BS (not Bruce Springsteen) and BS had located it! BS was kind enough to send me the DAT and I carefully transferred. When the transfer was complete, I was pleasantly surprised that the tape sounded much like I had remembered and a great improvement over other circulating copies and bootlegs of the show.

Thanks to Tapewyrm for all his contributions over the years and for saving the day on 6/24/78 and to BS for taking good care of the DAT clone over the last 15-20 years and sending me the tape.

And JEMS thanks AK for his generosity in supplying yet another tremendous upgrade out of his amazing archives.

In addition, continued thanks to Goody for stabilizing the pitch on all our releases, Slipkid 68 for the excellent write up of the show and BK for always having his hand on the wheel guiding the ship.

mjk5510 for JEMS

Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

Images for this show: