Bruce Springsteen
The Way It Was - The Complete Bottom Line Broadcast 8/15/1975
Disc 1: Broadcast, Part 1
101-Opening Comments
102-Tenth Avenue Freeze Out
103-Spirit In The Night
104-Then She Kissed Me
105-Growin Up
106-It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City
107-Intro to E Street Shuffle
108-E Street Shuffle
109-When You Walk In The Room
110-She's The One
111-Born To Run
112-Thunder Road
Disc 2: Broadcast, Part 2
201-Intro to Kitty's Back
202-Kitty's Back
203-Rosalita
204-Encore Comments
205-Sandy
206-Quarter To Three
207-Closing Comments
Disc 3: Bonus Tracks
301-Jungleland 1974
302-Kitty's Back 1974
303-E Street Shuffle 1975
304-Jungleland 1975
305-Tenth Avenue Freeze Out
306-It's Hard to Be A Saint in the City
307-Thunder Road
308-When You Walk In The Room
309-She's The One
Recording Notes:
Source for Discs 1 and 2, except where noted, was a reel to reel recording at 3 3/4 ips.
Transfer Path: Reel > Sony DTC-790 DAT (44.1 khz) > Hoontech Digital Soundcard > PC > WAV
CDWave software used to record the WAV file and cut into song segments.
No attempt was made to enhance the limited stereo soundstage, or to remove clicks/pops/hum
present in the original broadcast. These artifacts were part of the broadcast itself, and were not
related to reception.
Pasting of missing segment plus limited EQ to boost low end applied to all tracks by Cool Edit Pro software.
Track 203: Edit from another source (mono) used to replace missing segment due to reel flip
from 2:43 - 4:02
Tracks 301-302 Bottom Line Soundboards, 7/14/1975
Tracks 303-304 Bottom Line 1975 Soundboards
Tracks 306-309 Bottom Line 8/15/75 from WNEW rebroadcast 7/3/1988,
recorded on a Dolby C cassette deck - these are much better quality
than those used during the main show.
Personal Notes:
Truly a labor of love...
August 15, 1975 - High Temp in NYC 85, Low 65, Wind 10mph avg, gusts to 15mph. No precipitation.
A breezy midsummer night in NYC, where all the heat was concentrated on the
corner of West 4th and Mercer in Greenwich Village, NY.
Lots of Springsteen fans (me included) couldn't get into the Bottom Line - it usually seats 400, but there was
a larger than usual number of music industry seats reserved for these 10 shows (two shows each night
August 13-17.)
WNEW-FM broadcast the early show Friday night.
I've been searching for a complete copy of this broadcast since that night, when
the mono reel to reel tapes I made had many missing pieces due to lots of different reasons.
All of the bootlegs released by the profiteers were incomplete in some way, minor or major.
Finally, in March 2004, nearly 29 years later. I found it. It is not the final word on
this show in terms of sound quality, but it is the COMPLETE broadcast, without anything missing.
Turn it on and listen to it just like you would have back in August 1975. All the station
breaks and DJ chat and such are there.
Thanks to the many people involved in this project, from the tape source, to those
who let me borrow reel to reel decks to get the dub to DAT, to others who gave advice on
mastering procedures or supplied alternate sources. Your kindness will not be forgotten.