Bruce Springsteen
Cameron Indoor Stadium
Duke University
Durham, NC
March 28, 1976
ER Archives via JEMS

Audience Recording (equipment unknown)

JEMS Transfer: presumed 2nd generation cassettes > Nakamichi CR-7A
azimuth-adjusted transfer (July 2012) > Sound Devices USBPre 2 >
Audacity 2.0 (24/96) capture > iZoptope RX click repair and resample
to 16/44.1> Peak 6.0 with iZotope Ozone 5.0 > FLAC

01 Night
02 Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
03 Spirit in the Night
04 It's My Life
05 Thunder Road
06 She's the One
07 Born to Run
08 Meeting Across the River
09 Backstreets
10 Blinded By the Light
11 Jungleland
12 Rosalita
13 Raise Your Hand
14 Sandy
15 Detroit Medley

Hello and welcome to the first in a planned series of releases from the ER Archives, the collection of an active '70s taper and trader who stepped away from collecting, leaving his tapes pretty much dormant until now. We're still culling through the archive, but it is already clear that it contains some previously uncirculated shows as well as upgrades to circulating tapes, both audience and soundboard. ER used high-end tape decks and good tape, so his copies of even well-known shows may well be improvements.

The first of them is this previously unknown recording from Duke University, March 28, 1976, making it the earliest document we have of the Chicken Scratch tour, predating East Lansing (a JEMS master recording as it turns out) by nearly a week. The Chicken Scratch tour draws its name from the trek's circuitous routing and it hit several markets that were missed on the previous year's tour, including the Carolinas.

Bruce alludes to this foray south at a couple points in the show, asking if anyone in the crowd was down from Jersey or New York ("we got the same crowd following us around everywhere"). He also name drops "Ducky Slattery," made famous during the 1973 Main Point broadcast, saying that he used to tell a story about this guy who lived next to a gas station.

The setlist is reflective of the early part of the '76 tour, and features one of only four known (and three recorded) performances that year of "Blinded By the Light," which Bruce himself introduces by saying they haven't played it in a long time. The set also includes the first known cover of Eddie Floyd's "Raise Your Hand," with Bruce calling out at least one chord change ("D!") to support the idea that this is indeed its premiere.

The Duke show is also notable as one of but a handful of period shows to contain performances of all eight songs from Born to Run, including the rarely played "Meeting Across the River." There's also a passionate reading of "It's My Life" leading into "Thunder Road." The good news is that a few minor defects aside, this is a very nice recording for 1976 and all the songs are intact without cuts. I even heard some guitar bits and vocal parts I had never noticed before in other '76 shows. The only missing track is the presumed set closer, "Quarter to Three." Samples provided.

Wayne Darlington for JEMS and the ER Archives