Springsteen Darkness
 

...just picked up Springsteen's 'The Promise' box set companion book, The Light in Darkness amazing original photos and stories frm the Darkness tour, limited edition

I thought about starting a new thread, but I figured I'd just put it here, if anyone is interested.

Bruce just put out a webcast featuring several songs from The Promise that was filmed just last week in Asbury Park. For you Ain't Good Enough fans, there's a fun version here, with Bruce practically cracking up in the middle. :D (I lol'd at the part when he gets back to his mic and there's an audience member standing there :lol: )

My favorite part is the first song, a simply gorgeous version of Racing in the Street, featuring David Lindley on violin, who played on the original track that is featured on The Promise. If you've never heard of David, he is an amazing musician (multi-instrumentalist) who has played with many artists, including Jackson Brown, Linda Rondstat, and Warren Zevon, to name a few. As Sarge pointed out, (thanks, Sarge) perhaps it was his version of Mercury Blues that inspired Meat's cover of the song. David is also featured on The Promise here in the webcast, and it's my new favorite version of the song.

Anyway, here's the links I have- hopefully one will work for you.

from Bruce Springsteen.net:

Worldwide Streaming Information:
USA/Canada VEVO (http://www.VEVO.com)
Australia Australia YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/?gl=AU&hl=en-GB)
Ireland Irish Times (http://www.irishtimes.com)
UK The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk)
Germany Rolling Stone (http://www.rollingstone.de)
and Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.de)
France Deezer (http://www.deezer.com)
Spain El Mundo (http://www.elmundo.es) and Marca (http://www.marca.com)
Denmark - Politiken (http://www.pol.dk)
Holland Nu (http://www.nu.nl)
Switzerland Teleboy (http://www.Teleboy.ch) and Le Matin
(http://www.lematin.ch)
Italy Repubblica (http://www.repubblica.it)
Israel Walla (http://www.walla.co.il)

For fun, I thought I'd throw in this vid of Lindley's Mercury Blues:

YouTube Video

Clearly I was a good boy last year as the stunning box set was sat under the tree waiting for me on Christmas morning!

It's stunning!

Obviously some of the tracls on the double CD are on the double CD and not on Darkness for a reason, but some of them are worthy of being on a dedicated album and not an album of outtakes, I'm not just talking about Talk To Me, Rendezvous, Fire or Because The Night here, Candy's Boy is a superb different take on Candy's Room (which since Candy's Room is one of my all time favourites is praise indeed form me!), Rendezvous, Ain't Good Enough For You and Spanish Eyes are other tracks that get a notable early mention.

The Paramount show is stunning in it's intensity, the E Street Band sicken me in the way that they make it all look so easy!

The Thrill HIll Vault stuff from the sessions is interesting and stunning, I love those clips of SPringsteen at work in the studio and I'd love to see the Pheonix show in ti's entirety.

Tomorrow the remastered album and the Houston show beckon!

Stunning!

I'm glad you finally got it Andy- sounds like it was worth the wait for you. :D

The Paramount disc is my favorite thing in the box, and probably one of my favorite things he's done, ever. It is truly amazing how that band can still bring it. :cool:

I agree, there are some gems on the vault footage as well- I absolutely love "Something in the Night" from Red Bank '76. I'd also love to have heard the rest of the early version of "Candy's Room" (House at the end of the street?) that Bruce was playing on the piano in that small clip- it sounded even darker than the finished guitar version.

Phoenix '78 is great- the pity is that the whole show wasn't filmed (that we know of), thus those few songs are all there is. :( I think you'll like Houston, though. :-)

The outtakes set does have some excellent songs, although "Spanish Eyes" isn't one pf my favorites. On the other hand, I think "Ain't Good Enough for You" could have been a huge hit, regardless if Bruce or someone else recorded it. I'm kind of glad he saved it, though, so we get his version first. :-) (Shame we had to wait 32 years) Rendezvous is cool, but not too much different (aside from a few lyrics) from the "Tracks" version (which was live).

I think the album remaster was done pretty well, but after hearing Paramount, for me it's a bit of an afterthought. I don't think I'll play the original album much, if at all, anymore.

I'm curious about your guesses as to which vocals are new/ old? I think I've got most of them, but a couple have me scratching my head a bit- "Rendezvous" is one.

I've loved Rendezvous since I heard a scratch tape of it pre-tracks, so to finally get a decent studio take is a gift to me.

As for which are original and which are new vocals, I need to listen a few more times I think. Watch this space.

Did I mention that the notebook facsimile is stunning too? Very well put together.

Yeah, it took me at least a few listens. For a couple of songs, I'm still not sure.

I agree- it's incredible how realistic it looks! :-)