Bruce Springsteen Saint In The City - The Complete WGTB Radio Broadcast 1974 (2-CD)

(2015/ROXVOX) 10 tracks

This superb live set was taped at Georgetown University for WGTB-FM broadcast, six months after the release of Springsteen's landmark The Wild, the Innocent Et the E Street Shuffle LP. Although the Boss was battling a severe cold, he turned in a heroic performance, including rousing renditions of several of his trademark epics, with an especially impressive showing from drummer Ernest 'Boom' Carter, who'd only just joined the E-Street Band. It's presented here complete with background notes and images.

Right now it's 4.30 in the morning and Bruce Springsteen has just completed his second show at Georgetown University, Washington - scenario for The Exorcist. He's been ill - coughing up blood, causing the cancellation of the two preceding gigs. He's still coughing profusely and draws on a bottle of prescribed cough medicine which the doctor provided along with the statutory shot. What was the matter, Bruce? A futile question when you're on the road 90% of the time. "The doctor knows I only go and see him when there's something wrong," he says, and calculates that he's played over 200 gigs this past year. He puts on his old black jacket, check shirt tails showing out underneath. At 4.30 in the morning he shuffles over to the piano in the dressing room to play a new song on request, and at 5 he decides we should go and eat. The cops direct us to a subway café that says 'Open for breakfast,' but the doors are closed and we drive back along M-street to Georgetown and the last remaining hamburger joint. Springsteen bemoans the lack of good food with a tacit gesture on behalf of his sick body, and prays for summer and watersports. 6 o'clock. Springsteen decides the hamburger will be sufficient to induce a good day's sleep before catching the train down to New Orleans. At his hotel Mike O'Mahony of CBS informs Bruce that I've travelled 18,000 miles to see the band twice - in Los Angeles last year and in Washington tonight. "Sure 'predate it," he says proffering his hand, and disappears to bed. 12 hours earlier we had arrived at the Jesuit college, found the hall and walked right in on the soundcheck... "Spirits in the night, all night, in the night, all night..." CUT. Back to that bluesy, discordant into, start again - great song that. Like most of Bruce's songs, it's improved with age. I mean, there's cuts on the new album which you'd only just about recognise if you heard 'em onstage now - New York City Serenade, for instance, whilst Kitty's Back, an outstanding cut, is stretched across a marathon piano intro from David Sancious which is horribly over-embellished, but a guaranteed winner with audiences. "I've never heard him play a song the same way twice," exclaims a Springsteen fan who has been following him on the road. And as we survey the assembly of instruments and the incongruous bunch of bar musicians who are about to play them, you wonder how the hell Springsteen can induce a discipline that would invite comparisons with Van Morrison.

Anyhow, he's onstage and he's given a pop star's welcome - the crowd are screaming for him, but they cut off instantly in order to decipher the mumble of his opening rap, which is a pretty funny monologue punctuated by the occasional laugh and the odd decipherable word. He picks up acoustic guitar. Danny Federici has accordion and Garry Tallent hauls the tuba up into playing position, by which time the audience have already predicted Wild Billy's Circus Story. Gradually he works his way through the new songs - Incident On 57th Street, which he refers to as 'Spanish Johnny', New York City Serenade, then Spirit In The Night which he now intros ...