}

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Columbia Records To Release Bruce Springsteen's The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Story on 11/16



Color me speechless. It was officially announced today that Columbia Records will release Bruce Springsteen's The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story on 11/16. The set will include all sorts of goodies like 3CDs/3DVDs (including Darkness on the Edge of Town digitally remastered for the first time), two hours of audio, six hours of video, studio and live footage/photographs never released, and an 80-page notebook containing facsimiles from Springsteen's original notebooks from the recording sessions, with alternate lyrics, song ideas, recording details, personal notes, with a new essay by Springsteen. Looks like the big package is running $115, but for all that, that’s mighty worth the cost. (Santa, if you're reading this, I already know what you can get me for Christmas...)

"Darkness was my 'samurai' record," Springsteen writes, "stripped to the frame and ready to rumble…But the music that got left behind was substantial." For audio, the two discs will contain a total of 21 previously-unreleased songs from the Darkness recording sessions, songs that Springsteen writes, "perhaps could have/should have been released after Born To Run and before the collection of songs that Darkness on the Edge of Town became." Look for a rock version of "Racing in the Street," "Someday (We'll Be Together)," "Ain't Good Enough for You," a soul-based vocal performance on "The Brokenhearted," a haunting "Breakaway," never-before-released original recordings of "Because the Night," "Fire," and "Rendezvous," and the fully orchestrated masterpiece and title song "The Promise."

For video, the package will include a 90-minute documentary, The Promise: The Making of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town,. Shot between 1976 and 1978, it includes footage of home rehearsals and studio sessions during the making of Darkness, new interviews with Springsteen, E Street Band members, manager Jon Landau, former manager Mike Appel, and others closely involved in the making of the record. The Making will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on 9/14, and run on HBO 10/7.

Can you take one more?? Are you sure?? The set features more than four hours of live concert film from the Thrill Hill Vault, including the bootleg house cut (the footage that appeared on-screen at the concert) from a 1978 Houston show, and a 2009 performance of Darkness on the Edge of Town in its entirety, at the Paramont Theater in Asbury Park, NJ. This performance was shot in HD, without an audience, and “successfully recreates the stark atmosphere of the original album.”

A previously unheard song "Save My Love" and an excerpt from the documentary will be streaming here sometime between now and the 9/14 documentary premiere in Tornto (they think. I rang Shorefire to ask about "when" this will begin and they didn't know exactly, this was the best guess). So keep checking in...

Update 4:42 PM: The "Save My Love" stream is now live here.

Bruce Springsteen - "The Promise: The Making of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town'" Sneak Peek from Columbia Records on Vimeo.

All the specifics of the package are below.

Video.....
DVD 1: "THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF 'DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN'"
DVD 2:
-DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN (PARAMOUNT THEATER, ASBURY PARK, NJ, 2009)
1. Badlands
2. Adam Raised A Cain
3. Something In The Night
4. Candy's Room
5. Racing In The Street
6. The Promised Land
7. Factory
8. Streets Of Fire
9. Prove It All Night
10. Darkness On The Edge Of Town

THRILL HILL VAULT (1976-1978)
1. Save My Love (Holmdel, NJ 76)
2. Candy's Boy (Holmdel, NJ 76)
3. Something In The Night (Red Bank, NJ 76)
4. Don’t Look Back (NYC 78)
5. Ain't Good Enough For You (NYC 78)
6. The Promise (NYC 78)
7. Candy's Room Demo (NYC 78)
8. Badlands (Phoenix 78)
9. The Promised Land (Phoenix 78)
10. Prove It All Night (Phoenix 78)
11. Born To Run (Phoenix 78)
12. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (Phoenix 78)

DVD 3: HOUSTON '78 BOOTLEG: HOUSE CUT
1. Badlands
2. Streets Of Fire
3. It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City
4. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
5. Spirit In The Night
6. Independence Day
7. The Promised Land
8. Prove It All Night
9. Racing In The Street
10. Thunder Road
11. Jungleland
12. The Ties That Bind
13. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
14. The Fever
15. Fire
16. Candy's Room
17. Because The Night
18. Point Blank
19. She's The One
20. Backstreets
21. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
22. Born To Run
23. Detroit Medley
24. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
25. You Can't Sit Down
26. Quarter To Three

Audio...
CD 1: REMASTERED DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN
1. Badlands
2. Adam Raised A Cain
3. Something In The Night
4. Candy’s Room
5. Racing In The Street
6. The Promised Land
7. Factory
8. Streets Of Fire
9. Prove It All Night
10. Darkness On The Edge Of Town

CD 2: THE PROMISE (DISC 1)
1. Racing In The Street ('78)
2. Gotta Get That Feeling
3. Outside Looking In
4. Someday (We'll Be Together)
5. One Way Street
6. Because The Night
7. Wrong Side Of The Street
8. The Brokenhearted
9. Rendezvous
10. Candy's Boy

CD 3: THE PROMISE (DISC 2)
1. Save My Love
2. Ain't Good Enough For You
3. Fire
4. Spanish Eyes
5. It's A Shame
6. Come On (Let's Go Tonight)
7. Talk To Me
8. The Little Things (My Baby Does)
9. Breakaway
10. The Promise
11. City Of Night

Columbia will also release The Promise,, a double CD that includes tracks from Darkness "lost sessions" around the same time as The Promise package.

They're doing preorders now here.

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