Product Description

Personally supervised by Bruce Springsteen and Jon Landau, the box set includes "Hammersmith Odeon, london '75," an astonishing film of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's legendary 1975 concert at the Hammersmith Odeon in London; the new film "Wings for Wheels: The Making of Born to Run;" the classic album in remastered cd form; and finally, a 48 page booklet of previously unpublished photographs. With its two dvds, the package offers approximately four hours of previously unseen footage.

Spanning roughly two hours and ten minutes, the November 18, 1975 concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon finds an epic performance of sixteen Bruce Springsteen classics, including "Thunder Road," "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out," "Jungleland," and "Born to Run", as well as such other favourites such as "Kitty's Back" and "Rosalita". The multiple-camera film of the complete concert will be available in its entirety and its original sequence, as newly edited by emmy award winner Thom Zimny. "Hammersmith Odeon, London '75" is the only full-length concert film ever released of Bruce and the E Street Band's first 25 years.

The ninety-minute documentary "Wings for Wheels: The Making of Born to Run" chronicles the definitive story of the creation of Born to Run, from songwriting to production and beyond. "Wings for Wheels" boasts archival film never shown publicly, including substantial footage of Springsteen and the E Street Band recording the album, 1975 concert film and other footage shot between 1973 and 1975. The film also features exclusive footage of Springsteen playing solo piano and guitar versions of songs from Born to Run.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Thunder Road
2. Tenth Avenue Freeze Out
3. Night
4. Backstreets
5. Born To Run
6. She’s The One
7. Meeting Across The River
8. Jungleland

Disc 2:

1. Thunder Road (Never Before Seen 1975 concert from Hammersmith Odeon, London Feat.over 2 hours of music)
2. Tenth Avenue Freeze Out
3. Spirit In The Night
4. Lost In The Flood
5. She¹s The One
6. Born To Run
7. The E Street Shuffle/Having A Party
8. It¹s Hard To Be A Saint In The City
9. Backstreets
10. Kitty's Back
11. Jungleland
12. Rosalita
13. 4th Of July Asbury Park (Sandy)
14. Detroit Medley
15. For You
16. Quarter To Three

Disc 3:

1. Documentary DVD:The Definitive Story Of Making Of Born To Run.
2. New Interviews
3. Rare Archival Footage

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6582 in Music
• Released on: 2005-11-14
• Number of discs: 3

Customer Reviews

This DVD/CD has to have five stars
Five stars, greatest concert I've ever seen on DVD, better than 'Bullet in a Bible', Texas 'Greatest Hits', some of the best stuff I have ever seen, only seen the concert though, haven't heard the CD or seen the documentary (yet).

I think the low reviewers either don't like life, themselves or both. That's how it looks to me. You won't regretting owning this.

Sinc.
Jesper

At last - a re-mastering of this classic album
Despite no other Bruce Springsteen album being (as yet) given a much-needed re-mastering, it is great to finally listen to this, the album that "broke Bruce big" in anything close to acceptable sound. I have loved this album for thirty years despite its previous murky releases. Here, at last, we get some good sound. I won't go into track by track analyses, suffice to say the album is pretty much perfect in every way, as fifties, sixties and early seventies influences come together in one mighty cornucopia of essential sound. The hype is not exaggerated.

The Hammersmith concert video shows Springsteen in his strange mid-seventies incarnation - a strange, pixie-like figure, with echoes of Al Pacino in "Serpico", skinny, scruffy street urchin in a wierd woolly tea-cosy hat giving his all - hammering out boardwalk-inspired melodies that seem to go on forever, simply because nobody wants them to end. Nearly all the cuts are among his longest - "Spirit In The Night"; "Backstreets"; "Kitty's Back" (clocking in at an incredible 17 minutes!); "Jungleland"; and "Rosalita" - delivered like a long hot Asbury Park summer. Yes, the footage is way too dark, almost impossible to see anything at times, but we have to remember this was 1975. We are lucky to have concert footage at all. The sound has been wonderfully remastered on both DVD and the CD release. The gig is pure joy, Springsteen showing many people for the first time, that if you attend one of his shows, he will rock you all night and more. He ekes every last bit of energy out of himself and the peerless E Street band in a perfomance that was, despite his own personal reservations, worthy of the hype.

The documentary CD is also very interesting, showing Bruce at the time working on "Born To Run" and, in contemporary footage, talking about it, along with many of the others involved. It highlights just what a perfectionist he is/was (sometimes to his detriment - check out the excellent quality of tracks he rejected on the "Tracks" box set) and also, whether you like his music or not, his heart was always in the right place. He always wanted to produce the best possible piece of work. He should always be admired for that.

Impossible to fault
Unlike many of the purchasers of this three-disc set, my main reason for buying this was the attraction of the remastered CD rather than the video footage. I have owned several copies of 'Born to Run' in my time -- both on CD and LP -- but the sound quality, particularly on the title track, has always been mediocre. (Unfortunately Springsteen released the LP in 1975 when CBS, his record company, was cutting back on the amount of vinyl used in each pressing.)

Another misfortune is that Springsteen didn't record this a couple of years earlier, when CBS was playing around with quadrophonic mixes for its top-roster artists. Sadly CBS had given up by 1975, and more than that, Springsteen and the E Street Band were struggling to stay on the label, as one of the DVDs in this package reveals. Had 'Born to Run' not been an outstanding success, CBS would have dropped him.

Wonderfully, the remastered Born to Run is a great improvement over all previous versions. It's still not SACD quality, and I guess Sony will never release it in that format.

Both DVDs reveal what hard-working artists Springsteen and his band were. Nothing came through instant genius. Springsteen worked for 16 hours with Clemons on every note of the amazing sax solo in 'Jungleland' absolutely right. The Hammersmith concert shows what a tight outfit the E Street Band were. That is the quality that so often separates American bands who try to make it over here from British bands who try to make it over there. Our guys are often nowhere near as accomplished as musicians; nor have they put in the years on the road that the Americans typically have before they make it big.

For me, as 40-something, Born to Run is Springsteen's masterpiece, which stands apart from everything else he has done. I've never been to a Springsteen concert, and on the evidence of the Hammersmith Odeon concert, I still don't completely understand why he was dubbed the greatest-ever rock'n'roll band at the time, good though they were. Many said at the time that you had to appreciate the lyrics to really appreciate Springsteen. So it's good to hear the Springsteen of today listening again to 'Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out' and admitting that he now has no idea what the song was all about.

This is an outstanding package.