Recommendations of the Editorial team
August 1975: Tobender bull – Bruce Springsteen becomes the future of rock’n’roll in New York
In August 1975, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were booked for ten appearances in the small New York Club Bottom Line in Greenwich Village. Because the release of Springsteen’s third album, “Born to run”, his label Columbia invited more than 1000 guests from the music industry to experience what fans had known for a long time. Guitarist Steven van Zandt: “To let people stand out was routine for us. We had been doing this for ten years. And Bruce stuck every one of these ten years in these shows.” The band played twice a evening, and every gig was of breathtaking intensity, each a wild, life -affirmative festival. “That was our own party,” says Springsteen.
“It was the energy of the band that drove me to the tables”
“And we changed in the course of these five days. We went out differently than we came in.” From the first grades of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” (with which his concerts almost always started), Springsteen swept through the shop like a wild bull … “His strength was incredible,” says Stanley Snadowsky, one of the owners of the Bottom Line. “He climbed on columns, on the piano, on the tables. He turned out to the people with a daringness that everyone could feel in the room.” “It was the energy of the band that drove me to the tables,” says Springsteen. “If you play in such a small club, the room starts to bubble quickly. We were prepared for that. We had endless experience with it.”
Springsteen and the streeters roared through two hours of sets, in which the order of the pieces varied but always the emotional climax was always the same: a captivating version of “Thunder Road”, in the Springsteen – unlike the frame on the album – sitting all alone at the piano. “The band couldn’t do the song so well,” he admits.
“That was the only reason why I played it solo.” … Despite the jubilation from the audience, Springsteen was not convinced that they really did their best. “After one of the sets, Peter Wolf came into the cloakroom,” recalls Springste’s manager Jon Landau. “Bruce was a bit unsure about the quality of the performance, but Wolf literally jumped on him and screamed how crazy it was. A crazy scene – especially because Bruce Peter hardly knew at the time.”
And what did Springsteen get as a reward? Food poisoning
Robert de Niro was also in the audience on one of the evenings, who was shooting in the city with Martin Scorsese “Taxi Driver”. The challenging “You Talkin ‘To Me?” He listened to Springsteen. And what did Springsteen get as a reward? Food poisoning. “After the last show, someone brought a plate of grill chicken that we immediately cleaned away,” he says. “They must have been bad because the journey back to New Jersey was anything but a pleasure. One of the greatest band chunting of all time.”