Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Memorial Auditorium
Buffalo, New York
1980-12-4
(Alternate Recorder 2)

Taper: kshavo

Transfer: 1980's tape trade > Nakamichi CR5A (azimuth adjusted) > MacBook Pro > Audacity > Peak Pro XT (pitch correction / indexing / volume smoothing / subtle tweak) > xACT > FLAC


101 Born To Run
102 Out In The Street
103 Tenth Avenue Freeze Out
104 Two Hearts
105 The Price You Pay
106 Factory
107 Independence Day
108 I Fought The Law
109 Prove It All Night
110 Racing In The Streets
201 The River
202 Badlands
203 Thunder Road
204 Cadillac Ranch
205 Sherry Darling
206 Hungry Heart
207 Fire
208 Candy's Room
209 Because The Night
210 I Wanna Marry You
211 For You
212 The Ties That Bind
213 Wreck On The Highway
301 Stolen Car
302 Ramrod
303 You Can Look
304 Drive All Night
305 Rosalita
306 Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
307 Jungleland
308 I'm A Rocker
309 Detroit Medley
310 Raise Your Hand


I threw in some extras from the same time period as the show � they fit nicely on Disk 3 - Enjoy!

Audio Extras

001 Bruce Springsteen Montreal Radio Constest For 1980 Buffalo Show.flac
Rock Report 1980-21-07
Rock Report 1 1980-07-XX
Rock Report 2 1980-07-XX

Pictures/jpg files related to recording the show

Panasonic Slimline recorder.jpg
Radio Shack microphone.jpg
War Memorial Auditorium Seating Chart.jpg
Bruce ticket.jpg

Newspaper articles relating to the show

Buffalo Evening News Concert review 1980-12-05 Large.jpg
Buffalo Evening News Concert review 1980-12-05.jpg
Buffalo Evening News Gusto 1980-11-28.jpg
Buffalo Evening News Picture Page 1980-12-05.jpg
Buffalo Evening News Pop Music 1980-12-01.jpg



Recording history
Written by kshavo (AKA "Where's Jeff?")
Taper of this show (Alternate Recorder 2)
Written 11-24-2013

PART ONE - HOW THIS RECORDING RESURFACED

Presented here is an alternate recording source for Bruce Springsteen's Buffalo, NY 12-4-1980 show. This source is a second source recording. The first source is considered to be the recording made by Jeff Ulrich. His recording is widely circulated and has been regarded as the only source for the recording of this show for many years. The recording presented here will be identified as sourced from a second recorder. This second source has been circulated for many years, however not widely.
Before anymore is explained I must thank, mjk5510 from Jungleland, for making this recording available for all of us to hear again. His tireless dedication to making this alternate sourced recording available, as well as countless others, is appreciated beyond words. Thank you so much!
The story of this recording begins as many probably due nowadays, through an email. But before an email there was a post that I made. I posted the first source of this recording on 12-4-2010 on both Dime and Jungleland to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the show. I labeled the post the "Ultimate Version". It was the "Ultimate Version" for three reasons:
1) My recording is straight from the source tape Jeff recorded.
2) I added many extras
3) I enhanced the sound quality.
The first source has a very high end to it so I added some low end to make the recording more listenable. I posted this version as the "Ultimate Version" mainly because I thought the sound was now the best it could be and because I never thought my recording would ever surface again. Now though - here it is.
Two years later I posted the show again, and at that time an email showed up in my Jungleland inbox from mjk5510, he was very friendly and he claimed to have a possible second source for the Buffalo show. He suspected that I was the taper because in the info file of the "Ultimate version" post I stated that I recorded the show also but that the master tapes were long gone. I was very excited to here this news, it was like hearing that a friend was raised from the dead!

Here is the original email he sent:
Hi,
I was just comparing the version of 12/4/80 you uploaded to the version I traded for back in the early 1980's. My version is a different recorder than this version you posted from Jeff's tape.

You mention that your tape is long gone, is there a chance you traded it back in the early 80's and the version I have is from your tape?

Or it might be a totally separate recorder from that night. I still have more a/b comparing to do but just curious.

The tape I have misses the first minute or so of Born To Run but the audience noises at the start of Tenth Avenue Freeze Out are very distinct on my version and do not appear on Jeff's version you uploaded.

I was trading a lot with a taper in the Buffalo area in the 80's that is no longer actively trading named XXX XXXXX and I may have gotten this from him though do not have the traders name noted on it.

Thanks
(mjk5510)

We continued to send emails to each other and began to review portions of the recording to determine its origin. After careful review we determined that indeed the recording he possessed is my recording of Buffalo 12-4-1980. This was great news to me!

PART TWO - HOW THIS RECORDING WAS MADE

Jeff Ulrich, the recorder of the first source of this show, and I were friends back in 1980. I can't remember how we initially made contact, but it was probably through the mail. The taping community, as most in that day, was not united, and everything was done through the mail; we made it work though. Jeff and I made contact with each other and began to share recordings. Our initial meeting was on 5-6-1981 at a Blizzard of Oz concert. We set it up to meet at the McDonalds across the street from the Sheas Buffalo Theater. We had been in contact through post and phone calls for a year or so but that was day we finally met. Jeff is great guy; I'd love to have contact with him again. I mention Jeff to set the background and give him proper credit as the recorder of the primary source of this show. He is significant to this recording because it was after I received a copy of Jeff's recording of the show that I then stopped trading my copy, and I eventually erased the show off the master tape. My reasoning for accepting Jeff's recording as superior to my recording is as follows.
1) Jeff had much better recording equipment compared to mine
2) Jeff had seats closer to the stage/speakers for the show than me. These two facts were why I erased the master tapes. I had no appreciation of the value of a master recording of a concert at that time. The community overall did not emphasize the value of Master recordings. Tape catalogs that I had at that time did not identify master tapes or any generational copies; possibly we were a bit ignorant at that time of the generational loss that was occurring in the copying method. I for one had no understanding of this and was typically thrilled if I had a specific recording at all!!!
My philosophy of taping back then was "the closer you are to the stage speakers the better the recording will sound", this was a bit narrow-minded but made sense to a 17 year old. Although I had some solid proof that this was so; listen to my recording of Black Sabbath from the Buffalo Auditorium 10-13-1980. I recorded that show with the same equipment while sitting in a section right by the speakers. This recording has been labeled as a FM broadcast by some. That�s a good audience recording. I wasn�t that close for this show unfortunately. My seat was in Section 17 in the Upper Gold seats (See the jpg of the seating chart for the Memorial auditorium included with this torrent). My seats are marked by a circle around the section number I sat in, the stage is also identified. My memory is that Jeff had seats closer; this may or may not be accurate (where are you Jeff?). Well there is my reasoning behind erasing the master tapes, what�s done is done. Thanks to mjk5510 for keeping his copy after all these years.
Jeff did have better equipment than I did, but did that make a better recording? The recorder I used to tape this show was a Panasonic RQ-2104 Slimline Cassette Player/recorder. I have included a picture of the recorder in the torrent. The recorder belonged to friend of mine that I new from school (high school). The reason I used it to record shows was because it was slim and easy to hide from security. To get the recorder into shows I would tie a string to the pullout handle, and then wrapped the string over my shoulder, behind my neck and finally over my other shoulder; I then attached the other end of the string to the other end of the handle. Essentially the recorder hung on my back by a string wrapped over my shoulders. Security typically did a pat down of my sides but never my back so it always worked. After I got it into the venue I would head to the bathroom to take it off then I would hide it in my coat while I carried my coat. Effective I must say. I also used a hand held Radio Shack Dynamic Microphone (don�t be impressed by the word dynamic � it was cheap!). A picture of it is also included with the torrent. I used two TDK-D 120 min tapes to record the show. Everything was done on the cheap, 17 year old kids don't have much money, just a lot of free time! To record I simply held the recorder on my lap and the mic in my hand, security was not a problem at this show. When I duplicated shows I used a portable tape player connected to a Soundesign tape deck and recorded on TDK-D tapes. I�m glad I traded so now I can hear this recording again.

PART THREE - 33 YEARS LATER


This show is still the best concert I have ever seen; actually it�s the only time I ever saw Bruce live. He still rocks, I should go see him today, but I�m not paying anymore than $9.50 (see the scan of my ticket stub from the show). The recording is decent; there are no major flaws in the copy presented here. The original recording I made is presented here in full, I only flipped the tape 2-3 times I think and didn�t miss much, although �Born to Run� is incomplete because I had trouble getting the tape recorder going (Why is such simple task as pressing a record button so difficult when your trying to record a concert?). The sound quality overall is good to very good; the recording is clear with strong vocals present.
I just turned 50 and to say I am nostalgic is an understatement. Musically I would go back to 1980 with no hesitation; if only I could. I listen to this concert every December 4th, without fail. It brings back such great memories! Now I have even more memories to cherish. Thanks Bruce! I love you E Street Band! You�re the best mjk5510! and God Bless the Big Man!

UPHOLD THE 11TH COMMANDMENT � WHICH IS:
DO NOT CONVERT TO ANY LOSSY FORMAT
AND AS ALWAYS
SUPPORT THE ARTISTS


Keep Rockin�
kshavo (AKA Where�s Jeff?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

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