The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts (2 CD/DVD)

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band

Columbia / Legacy, 2021

http://www.brucespringsteen.net

REVIEW BY: Jason Warburg

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 03/07/2022

No matter how many times you’ve sold out Madison Square Garden, no matter how iconic your name has become, it still takes some serious cojones to use the word “legendary” to describe one of your own concerts. You really just shouldn’t. Not ever. You really just shouldn’t… unless it’s true.

When Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band took the stage on their home turf of New York City on September 21, 1979 it was the first live date they had played that calendar year. They had been locked away in the studio for months, working feverishly on the dozens and dozens (and dozens) of songs that would eventually be distilled down to Springsteen’s still-expansive 20-song 1980 double album The River. (Many more would end up on his 1998 “open up the vaults” collection Tracks.) As if the pent-up urge to play live wasn’t enough to get the adrenaline flowing, their second appearance the following night ran past midnight and into Springsteen’s 30th birthday.

Springsteen and his E Street compadres came out of studio hibernation to headline a pair of star-studded evenings of musical entertainment convened in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident for the purpose of raising money and awareness around the dangers of nuclear power. The concerts were co-organized by Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, and Graham Nash and featured performances by them, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, the Doobie Brothers, Chaka Khan, Gil-Scott Heron, James Taylor and Carly Simon, and others.

A subsequent No Nukes live album barely scratched the surfaces of the shows, featuring a mish-mash of performances by the various artists, focusing on collaborations rather than any of the artists’ principal hits. The two Springsteen cuts—an edited-down “Detroit Medley” and “Stay”—represented a small fraction of their performances, which were recorded and also filmed for the No Nukes concert movie, whose final cut similarly hopscotched through the shows rather than presenting full set by the artists. The film included just three songs from Springsteen: “The River,” “Thunder Road,” and “Quarter To Three.” The entire Springsteen set is shared in both audio (two CDs) and video (one DVD/BluRay) form here for the first time.

Headlining on his home turf, playing live for the first time in most of a year, Springsteen and the E Streeters leave nothing on the stage. Opener “Prove It All Night” hits like a cruise missile, a thunderous performance that’s lit up by one of Springsteen’s most expansive and passionate guitar solos in the closing minute. They give the audience all of ten seconds to catch their breath before launching headlong into “Badlands,” because why not? It’s a relatively short set – 100 minutes instead of the frequently-achieved 200—so go ahead and hit ’em with both barrels right up front. Five minutes and forty seconds later the crowd is roaring and so is Bruce. Calling this performance incendiary is like calling the sun “kind of hot.” my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250

With Darkness On The Edge Of Town still Springsteen’s LP of the moment at that point, he makes it a three-fer with “The Promised Land,” a sort of rock and roll hymn to the promise of adulthood and freedom. How that freedom plays out is the subject of the at-this-time still unreleased “The River.” While the song has never been a personal favorite, this rendition is among the best I’ve ever heard, both stately and fervent, powerful in its immediacy. Shaking off that quiet moment, Bruce queues up “Sherry Darling”—a hoot, but a hoot with edge, a ringing rocker about a possibly doomed relationship. It’s the sort of darkly shaded rave-up that would be heavily featured on The River.

“Thunder Road” arrives and reminds how songs became legends in the hands of a hard-working craftsman like The Boss. It’s a cinematic overture to Springsteen’s entire oeuvre, an anthem to possibility, both the romantic and the existential kind—and the crowd is singing along at the top of its lungs to this four-year-old song before he hits the second line, egging the band on. In the closing segment Clarence Clemons’ clarion-call sax does affectionate battle with the guitars and pianos, driving the song to a natural crescendo that leaves the crowd in ecstasy. (Meanwhile on the DVD version, Springsteen gives a masterclass in rock and roll stage performance, opening with just his harmonica under a single spotlight, gradually building up to a race around the perimeter of the stage that plays to every seat in the house before he closes out with a running knees-first slide across center stage to end at Clemons’ feet.)

And with that… we’re not even halfway through the set.

Where do you go from there? How about on a ten-minute flight of expansive rock and roll fantasy? “Jungleland” is a three-act Broadway musical crammed into a single epic rock and roll song, one that only Bruce could have written. When he delivers the song’s rocket-booster handoff—“Down…in… jun-gle-land”—it’s a goosebump moment of sparkling purity. Clemons’ sax solo begins like a lighthouse calling the protagonist home, then takes off and soars on its own epic romantic journey. It’s stunning, and this particular performance captures one of Bruce and Clarence’s finest moments together.

How do you follow that? Just about the only way you could: with “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” a.k.a. the word “exuberance” defined and explained in musical form. Closing out the main set, the crowd erupts at the very first note of “Born To Run,” band and audience carrying one another on their shoulders as they rocket through Springsteen-land’s national anthem. “Thank you” cries a hoarse Bruce as the crowd demands more.

The first encore is the perfect spot for a guest-filled jam, so Bruce brings out co-host Jackson Browne, second-billed Tom Petty, and harmony vocalist Rosemary Butler to jam on “Stay,” the classic r&b number popularized by Browne. The interplay between these four and Clemons is pure giddy fun. Next up, the “Detroit Medley” has been a part of Springsteen lore for decades; it’s never sounded better than this as the E Street Band steamrolls through “Devil With The Blue Dress On,” “Good Golly Miss Molly,” “C.C. Rider,” and “Jenny Take A Ride” in an ecstatic ten-minute jam. Followed, naturally, by solar-plexus-smashing renditions of two more early rock and roll classics: a ten-minute romp/vamp on “Quarter To Three” and a tight, delirious run at the Buddy Holly hit “Rave On.”

A lapsed Roman Catholic, Bruce Springsteen often casts his passion for rock and roll in religious terms. After listening to and watching this beautifully packaged set, it seems only right to call this release what it is: one of the lost Holy Grails of rock and roll: one of the genre’s greatest performers giving one of his greatest performances. The fact that it’s been not just found, but assembled with loving care and let out into the world for all to marvel at and enjoy, is a beautiful thing indeed—some might even call it “legendary.”

Rating: A

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