Roll Yer Tapes: Coliseum Night, 12/29/80

Coliseum Night was my first Bruceleg (aka “Bruce Springsteen bootleg,” yes I know the lingo, no that doesn’t make me sad, why do you ask?). There may have been others; I remember tape trees around the time of Tom Joad, but I don’t remember actually listening to any of them. One of my oldest internet pals sent me a CD-R burn of Coliseum Night and that was all she wrote. I was pretty much gone.

Coliseum Night is one of the classic Brucelegs, or at least, it was for a long time. There’s been so many new releases over the years that it’s probably dropped down a few pegs. Just from that three-night run at Nassau Coliseum alone, there’s been a few jaw-dropping releases documenting the 12/31/80 show, including one from actual sixteen-track masters that were allegedly considered at one point for official release. (I’m working from memory here, so forgive me any errors.)

When I first got it, which must have been around 1996–97 (my sophomore or junior year of college), it was a Big Deal. It was a Soundboard release, a term that has lost most of its meaning today but back then spoke of ilicit tape recorders plugged secretly into professional-grade sound systems by a ragtag band of music liberators. I will be forever in your debt, Unknown Dude Who Managed To Get This Show Recorded Without Getting Arrested.

And it was a full, big, classic E Street show, in the thick of a classic tour, on the band’s most fertile stomping grounds in Jersey. A really long show, if that makes any difference. It was full of incendiary performances and special touches.

As one example, Coliseum Night documents one of the great Springsteen live rarities — the “Incident” into “Rosalita” pairing, where they perform “Incident on 57th Street” straight into “Rosalita” just like it is on The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. BRUCEFanatic tells me this combo has appeared 8 times, and only twice since this 1980 occurrence, one of which was during the full album show featuring Innocent performed in sequence in 2009, so it sorta doesn’t count.

Caryn Rose and I have been conversing on Twitter about the issue of song rarity versus song quality when it comes to Springsteen’s bag of live tricks. She was there for this year’s infamous appearance of “Bishop Danced,” and rightly claims that such a song probably deserves to be left out of any setlist, especially when there are plenty of other rarities from Tracks and other albums that could be aired as first-time or first-in-a-long-time performances. (Jesus, “The Brokenhearted” would make me weep like a baby child.)

I tend to agree, although I do enjoy that Springsteen is still pushing himself and his band so fiercely at this stage in his career — he could have gotten a better reaction by hauling “Hungry Heart” out of the cabinet, but instead he went deeper and took a greater risk. (I’m sure they rehearsed the song a few times in soundcheck, but still — that kind of high-wire performance is fraught with peril.)

For me, an “Incident”/”Rosalita” would maybe be my only live Springsteen holy grail. I tend to enjoy the performance as a whole and still find things in warhorses that move me to this day — I thought I was done with “Promised Land” but then a version from the May show in Newark this year clicked with me and now it’s on repeat on my iPhone again.

So yeah, this show has a fair share of “special” moments. You’ve got a “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town,” a “Merry Christmas Baby,” a “Who’ll Stop The Rain” and a “This Land Is Your Land,” “Fire” and “Because The Night” and “Jungleland” and…

But it’s not just a great boot because it’s got rarities. It’s one of those rare combinations of perfect vibe, quality sound, and great setlist that makes a bootleg to me indispensible. It’s hard to put my finger on it, because it’s more than just hearing every instrument, or band committment, or the ideal songs in the ideal order. It’s all of those proportioned just right. Hell, listening to Coliseum Night again after a few years away, I was struck by just how deep Bruce’s voice is buried in the mix, and how distant and ticky-tack Roy’s piano sounds.

Still, the overall effect is dynamite. It’s a classic, and it opened my eyes so very wide — that moment when you realize there’s an entire universe or three of sound from one of your favorite artists beyond the albums you’ve been obsessively spinning over and over.