Bruce Springsteen will begin selling official bootlegs of some of his most legendary concerts. The singer has launched an online store with recordings from more than 30 recent gigs, with plans to dig much deeper into his 40-year career.
Live Bruce Springsteen debuts with high-resolution recordings from all of Springsteen’s 2014 tour dates, including a New Zealand gig where he performed the entirety of Born to Run. Although these concerts were previously available through a different official online shop, they are now for sale in a much wider array of formats, including CD sets. Springsteen has also shared a recording of the E Street Band’s 8 March 2012 concert at New York’s Apollo theatre . It is the first of a series of releases from Springsteen’s archives.
“We know, of course, that fans want to dig deep [into concert archives],” Brad Serling, whose company oversees the Live project, told the Springsteen site Backstreets. “[But] what I’ve found with any actively touring artist, big or small, is that recent always trumps older in the artist’s mind. There’s an afterglow of big moments in the near-rear-view mirror that are more meaningful to them than the glories of the distant past.”
Although the 2012 Apollo show is far from fans’ most sought-after release, Springsteen and Serling’s team are planning to showcase many earlier shows, including several from between 1973 and 1978. “It’s very exciting to think about the different eras that will be covered,” Serling said. “And what’s really interesting is where the tapes are coming from. What’s in the vault, what isn’t. Not all of it is in their archives, so they are sourcing material now.”
Springsteen was inspired by “looking at YouTube and seeing fan-generated content from his recent shows,” Serling said. “He was like, ‘We can do better than that.’” Springsteen’s archivists are now poring over everything from soundboard recordings to radio broadcasts, and they could even use fan recordings. “Nothing’s off the table,” Serling said.
Live Bruce Springsteen is modelled on similar schemes that Serling has overseen for Phish and the Grateful Dead. Besides these recent High Hopes tour-dates, Springsteen has only officially released four live albums, consisting of shows from 1992, 2000, 2006, and a 1975-1985 retrospective.
