Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Johanneshovs Isstadion
Stockholm Sweden
May 7, 1981
Recorder 2 (Floor Source)

Transfered and upped by mjk5510 (January 2013)

Transfer: Early 1980's tape trade > Nakamichi CR-5A (Azimuth Adjusted) > MacBook Pro > Audacity > Peak Pro XT (indexing/volume smoothing) > xACT > FLAC
Patch source bonus tracks: Recorder 1 source (pitch corrected)

DISC ONE
01 Follow That Dream
02 Prove It All Night
03 Out In The Street
04 Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
05 Darkness On The Edge Of Town
06 Independence Day
07 Who'll Stop The Rain?
08 Two Hearts
09 The Promised Land
10 This Land Is Your Land
11 The River
12 Badlands
13 Thunder Road

DISC TWO
01 Cadillac Ranch
02 Sherry Darling
03 Hungry Heart
04 Fire
05 You Can Look
06 Stolen Car
07 Racing In The Street
08 Backstreets
09 Candy's Room
10 Ramrod
11 Rosalita

DISC THREE
01 Born To Run
02 The Detroit Medley
03 Rockin' All Over The World

BONUS: Patched Tracks
All edited tracks patched with pitch corrected segments from "Warm Welcome In Stockholm"
D1 Track 07: Who'll Stop The Rain Patched
D1 Track 13: Thunder Road Patched
D2 Track 08: Backstreets Patched
D3 Track 02: Detroit Medley Patched

First and most importantly, thanks to the original taper(s) that produced such a beautiful recording over 31 years ago, I truly wish I could sit down, buy you the beverage of your choice and somehow show my gratitude for the enjoyment I've gotten out these tapes for 30 years now. Also, thanks to my long time, missing in action, trading partner that sent them to me 29 or so years ago.

The 1981 European tour produced some great shows with a few counted among my favorite Bruce shows. This and the show on the 8th being at the top of the list and recognized as 2 of the greatest shows, of not only the European leg of the River tour but of the River tour era. As I continue to make my way through the 1200+ Bruce tapes I traded for in the 80's, I'm finding some of my assumptions challenged, one being this previously uncirculated Recorder 2 source I never realized I had.

A little story about how we got here:
The tapes we have here I traded for in 1982 or 1983 and were among the first tapes I acquired once I got into taping and trading. Having listened to them for years and years, I always assumed they were the same source used for all the circulating LP/CD bootlegs. After all, the quality on the tapes is excellent and the circulating bootlegs are excellent as well, so what would the chances be we had two recorders producing an excellent quality capture that night in 1981 in Stockholm and one not being widely circulated for 31 years, I figured slim to none.

My process is to pull the tapes for a certain show, see what is circulating and research if my copy can improve on it. After reading that the master tapes for "Follow That Dream" were supposedly lost in a fire in the mid 80's and knowing that I had traded for this set of tapes in the early 80's. I hoped that maybe I had an actual tape copy of this show to share since all the circulating silver disc copies were produced from the vinyl LP's.

I don't think I listened to the vinyl versions of this show more than once since I had the tapes. After reading "Promised Land" was cut on all circulating versions I figured I would start there, imagine my surprise when "Promised Land" was complete on the tapes I had. At this point I figured I had an uncut tape copy of the widely circulated source. I then compared to all circulating versions. I was able to confirm the tapes I had for close to 30 years were indeed from a 2nd recorder.

The audience characteristics for this source are of a floor recording very close to the stage. During the music passages audience noise is for the most part non existent, between songs you get much closer, detailed individual clapping which characterize a floor recording.
The music itself is in your face with Bruce's vocals being up front and exceptionally clear. You can make out all the subtle voice inflections. Clarence and Steve's back up vocals are clean and clear as well. Instruments have beautiful clear separation. There is some hiss in the quieter dialogue sections but cutting it any removed too much of the vocal quality and tone so was left as is. The 2nd recorder source we have here really puts you in the seat and gives you that feeling of being there.

So what are the differences between sources when it comes to the music.
"Promised Land" is complete on this recorder 2 source so for the first time we can now hear the harmonica solo in it's entirety, an additional 30 seconds. We also get 15 seconds more dialogue between "Darkness�" and "Independence Day".

The known issues with the recorder 2 source are edits/splices in 4 songs.

-10 seconds missing in "Who'll Stop The Rain" after the line "good
men through the ages�"
-38 seconds missing in "Thunder Road" after "your graduation gown lies in
rags at their feet�"
-19 seconds of the intro to "Backstreets" missing.
-54 seconds missing in "Detroit Medley" after "Baton Rouge Louisiana�all
aboard�"

The main download contains the show as it was sent to me 30 years ago with just a few small tweaks & volume smoothing. I've added as bonus tracks the spliced tracks patched with the missing segments from a pitch corrected version of "Warm Welcome In Stockholm". If you prefer, simply replace the spliced tracks in the main body with the patched tracks and for the first time, to my knowledge, the show can be heard 100% complete with no music or dialogue missing.

I'm always reluctant to say a tape is totally uncirculated unless it's never been out of the taper's hands, so I'll just say this is less widely circulated than the more common source and uncirculated here as best I can tell. If it's out there it's not easily found and I could find no reference to a second recorder that night. I've cherished these tapes for 30 years, this show still gives me chills especially with this now proper digitizing, the old tapes never sounded so good.

It's my pleasure to bring you this show, one of the best from the River tour, now complete in the best ever quality.

Enjoy!
MJK5510