Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
PPG Paints Arena-Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
August 18th, 2024
Somewhere in the 1981-83 range, I spent a lot of time driving east to the far reaches of Toronto’s suburbs so I could spend even more time flipping through the bins of Star Records (Markham Road and Eglinton Avenue in the far reaches of Scarborough for all you GTA residents). Star Records carried hundreds of bootlegs-dozens of them by Springsteen. Usually $20-30 per disc, a typical Springsteen concert was a three-record affair in most cases. With few exceptions, sound quality was usually mediocre at best. At a time when a normal album was under $10, it was an agonizing experience trying to decide which one to spend my hard-earned busboy dollars on…no refunds/no exchanges!
I bought “The Demo Tapes” on one of those trips. It included a song I’d read about, but never heard called, “If I Was The Priest”. This quirky, solo acoustic tune was supposedly played when John Hammond, the man who auditioned Springsteen in 1972, asked for a song that he’d never actually play in public.
I got to hear that song in person, played by the full E Street Band 40+ years after my first time listening to the scratchy demo recording and it was stunningly beautiful. Overall Sunday night we were treated to a great show with an excellent setlist, and the legendary E Street Band’s unfailingly energetic 3-hour set, etc., etc., but for seven or eight minutes, I wasn’t at a Springsteen concert. As the music washed over me, I was 17 years old all over again, driving my 1972 Cougar to Scarborough with my tip money to buy a new bootleg.
Review and Photos by Jeff Ross
