Bruce Springsteen - 1976-04-08 - Cleveland, OH (SBD)

Bruce Springsteen

& the E Street Band

1976-04-08

Allen Theater

Cleveland, Ohio

Soundboard Recording

192 kbps

Artwork Included

Disc 1:

01. Night

02. 10th Ave Freezeout

03. Spirit In The Night

04. It's My Life

05. Thunder Road

06. She's The One

07. Born To Run

Disc 2:

01. Incident On 57th Street

02. Everytime You Walk In The Room

03. Frankie

04. Backstreets

05. Growin' Up

06. It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City

07. Jungleland

Bruce Springsteen - 1976-04-08 - Cleveland, OH (SBD)

Bruce Springsteen was inducted into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 1999, aong with Billy Joel, Dusty Springfield, and Sir Paul McCartney, just to name a few others. At the time the Hall did his long time back up group, the legendary E Street Band, a disservice by not including them. Springsteen made up for it by inviting the entire band to attend the ceremony, and then bringing them on stage. As he and the band had not played together since 1989, it was a historic moment that became much more. Soon after, a reunion tour was announced. To paraphrase the Blues Brother’s movie “they’re putting the band back together”. By the way, the injustice of omitting the E-Streeters from the hall was corrected in 2014. 

This soundboard recording captures Bruce in the city where the Rock Hall of Fame now resides, on April 8, 1976, a half century ago today. For Springsteen, 1975 had been a breakthrough year as he released Born To Run, played historic concerts at The Bottom Line in NY and The Roxy in Los Angeles, and made the covers of Time and Newsweek in the same week. Yet despite the critical acclaim, Bruce still had not yet graduated to playing arena and stadium size shows. When he went back out on the road in Spring 1976, his road crew referred to the 2 month run of shows as The Chicken Scratch tour. The nickname reflected the meandering route the tour took the south, midwest, and northeast US, hitting numerous small towns where the band had never before played, and often backtracking on itself to get to the next gig. One side note - the Chicken Scrtach tour is also famous for Bruce's visit to Graceland after his April 29 show in Memphis. Upon arrival, he noticed a light on in the house, assumed it meant the King was home, and proceeded to jump the gates. Security intervened, had no idea who he was despite Bruce's efforts to explain he had been on the covers of Time and Newsweek, and politely escorted him to the street.