February 8, 2025
Yesterday saw the first "First Friday" release from the Springsteen/Nugs archival concert series since last March's Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, September 21,1978. (Okay, actually it was a "Second Friday" release that month, most likely due to the Friday March 1, 2024 announcement of Best of Bruce Springsteen, as we reported at that time, but still...) That Capitol Theatre release also was the final archival concert release before the shutdown of the website that was the series' former online home: live.brucespringsteen.net
Presumably continuing with monthly releases at least until the 2025 Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band tour commences in mid-May, the "First Friday" archival series has resumed this month with yesterday's drop of Vancouver, BC 2005, recorded at Springsteen's August 13, 2005 Devils & Dust Tour show in "Pontiac Theatre" at what was then known as GM Place (now Rogers Arena.) It's another great show from that tour, opening with a rare solo-pump-organ version of "Living Proof" (the third of only eight such performances of the song on that tour,) an especially appropriate and moving choice given that the song's real-life inspiration, Springsteen's first-born son Evan, was working on the stage-crew that night:
Other highlights of Vancouver, BC 2005 include Springsteen's last performance to date of the still-all-too-relevant "Paradise," and the only Devils & Dust Tour performance of "Because The Night," delivered in a unique solo version with Bruce also playing an electric piano. As usual, Jon Altchiller and his sonics team (this time around including Danielle Warman, Brad Serling, and Arya Jha) deliver another awesome new mix from multitrack master tapes.
Click here to read more about Vancouver, BC 2005 in Columbia/Nugs archivist Erik Flannigan's essay, "Man on Wire."