Bruce Springsteen, Toronto, ON, December 21, 1975
Out today is the latest release from The Live Archive Series, the final night of the first leg of the Born to Run Tour. Read archivist Erik Flannigan’s essay on the storied night in Toronto, then order your copy today or stream it exclusively in the nugs app:
You Better Not Pout, I’m Telling You Why
ARCHIVE RELEASE: Bruce Springsteen, Seneca Field House, Toronto, ON December 21, 1975
By Erik Flannigan
To all but a few misanthropes among us, the Live Archive series has been received as the bounty of riches it is. Each installment is an audio time machine that transports us back to specific, historic performances in Bruce Springsteen’s career. It bears repeating that, for those who traded iffy live tapes for decades, the idea that nearly 100 vintage multitrack recordings would be released for sale was unimaginable back in the day. It’s especially true when factoring in the release of every show of a current tour. If dreams came true, well wouldn’t that be nice?
Regardless of era, each Archive release has its distinct merits, but performances from Springsteen’s climb up the mountain (contrasted with those played at the career summit) offer extra appeal.
That’s what we get to hear on Toronto, December 21, 1975. This previously unheard, let alone unreleased 49-year-old recording is one of the more transporting in the series to date. From inside the Field House at Seneca College, this new audio evidence strongly suggests nary a person in attendance had ever seen Springsteen before.
Per Brucebase, the Toronto show was originally slated for a 1,000 seat venue, then bumped twice to bigger ones due to ticket demand, ultimately landing at the Field House. The 3,000 Bruce curious who assembled that frigid evening applaud with well-mannered respect between songs but remain uncannily quiet otherwise as they witness the sublime performance unfolding in front of them. Case in point: when Bruce hits his first hard stop before introducing the band in “Rosalita,” the smattering of applause makes clear the crowd has no clue how to react.
The Archive release of Berkeley Community Theatre July 1, 1978 conveyed a similar sense of aural intimacy and audience respect, but with Toronto, the “You Are There As It Happens” element sounds even more pronounced.
The Toronto concert was originally recorded to 16-track, two-inch master tapes which were Plangent Process transferred just a few weeks ago and newly mixed by Jon Altschiller. That work, combined with the sonic byproduct of an unusually polite Ontario crowd, yields a close-up, wide stereo recording rich with detail. When A/V aficionados talk about OLED TV screens, they say “the blacks are so black.” The equivalent with the Toronto audio is “the silences are so silent.”
The aforementioned notion of Springsteen’s climb up the mountain applies to several factors in a performance, like whether he’s playing to audiences that need convincing, which is surely the case in Toronto. Another is that this line-up of the E Street Band with Stevie Van Zandt, Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg only had five months together under their belts. While they are undeniably locked into each other, their parts aren’t as fixed as they would eventually become, so there’s a fresh, in-the-moment feeling to the band’s playing throughout the Toronto set.
Given the crowd vibe, the night begins modestly, with Bruce and Roy performing the slow piano version of “Thunder Road” that opened most Born to Run tour concerts in 1975. It’s worth reminding ourselves that this now-familiar arrangement must have been an enormous surprise to hear if all you knew was the album version.
A rousing “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and “Spirit in the Night” (both loaded with tasty licks from Van Zandt) follow and the audience shows signs of beginning to absorb what they are witnessing, particularly after “Spirit.” The band is sharp from the jump and while Bruce’s otherwise strong vocals carry a hint of him holding back ever so slightly, something shifts in “Lost in the Flood.”
Tension builds organically through the second verse, and when Bruce sings “The kids call him Jimmy the Saint,” Van Zandt unleashes a wicked guitar trill, the rest of the band smashes in, and the song bursts open. Stevie’s guitar continues to sparkle throughout and Springsteen’s vocal restraint vanishes in favor of passion and intent. When “Lost in the Flood” quiets down again for Bittan’s piano outro, the cliche “you can hear a pin drop” has never been more accurate.
“She’s the One” picks up where “Lost in the Flood” took off, as the audience claps along to Bruce’s harmonica over Weinberg’s Bo Diddley beat. Later, Springsteen’s own guitar work matches Van Zandt’s stride for stride in this outstanding reading that’s met with the biggest applause of the night so far. Sensing he may have cracked the code, Springsteen sings “Born to Run” with fervor you can hear in the very first utterance of “tramps LIKE us.”
Off those peaks, “Pretty Flamingo” cools things down for 14 languid, enchanting minutes that include two storytelling patches. The first starts in familiar territory as Bruce recounts sitting with Steve on the porch day after day watching a pretty girl walk by on her way home from work. In this version, however, they are joined by Bruce’s dad.
“My father was home a lot. He was the kind of guy, he would get up in the morning — well, he’d wake up and decide if he was gonna get up. And if he felt like going to work, he’d go. If not, he’d stay around home…. He was always watching what I was doing, keeping his eye on me. He thought I was always getting into all kinds of trouble and stuff. He figured that was more his job to stay home and make sure I was cool. So he’d be sitting out there with us on the porch.”
Springsteen goes on to recall buying a guitar at Western Auto and a bicycling Clarence Clemons “riding by with no hands, playing the saxophone,” all in an effort to impress the woman strolling by each day. It’s a fun variation on the familiar tale, as is a second chapter later in the song about hiring a detective agency only to realize his sister could have been his ideal ambassador.
Guitars return to the spotlight for “Saint in the City” and once again the clarity of the Toronto recording shines as the guitarists swap licks across the stereo field, with Bruce in the center and Stevie on the right. As if the musicianship wasn’t already showing out, “Kitty’s Back” gives each member of the band a moment. Listen for Bruce’s guitar solo at 11:14 giving a nod to Van Morrison’s “Moondance.”
An immense “Jungleland” with still more magic moments from Van Zandt and Clemons carries the show’s denouement and “Rosalita” takes the set home. While the audience was disoriented in the latter’s first break, their applause at the end makes it clear they figured it out.
“Sandy” starts the encore evocatively, with Clemons’ low baritone sax underpinning Danny Federici’s accordion in a gorgeous take. It’s fun to hear a version of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” that’s contemporary to the officially released version from Greenvale, New York, recorded nine days prior. While the arrangement is the same for both, the introductions are charmingly different (and the ensuing banter is, too).
After “Detroit Medley,” the now-sustained audience response is joined by cheers and whistles: by this point we’ve witnessed Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band completely win over the crowd. And he’s not done yet.
In what might be the high point of the evening, Springsteen returns for a solemn solo piano “For You.” His performance delivers unique line readings and vocal dynamics, especially in the final verse and chorus which are riveting. Bruce also alters the pivotal line in the bridge, singing, “Remember how I kept you waiting, when it was FINALLY my turn to be the god?” “Quarter to Three” ends the evening with a buzz that surely lingered for all 3,000 Torontonians.
Born to Run, both album and tour, turn 50 years old in 2025. It was a time when Bruce’s future career wasn’t guaranteed, but performances like Toronto were the occasions where the curious became the converted.
Toronto 1975 was painstakingly transferred from the original 2″ master tapes at Sonicraft utilizing the Plangent Processes playback system, and mixed and mastered from the original 16 track recording at Chiller Sound earlier this month. CDs, hi-res downloads, DSD128 files, and MP3s are now available. You an also stream this show now along with 100 other releases from the Springtseen Archive Series exclusively with a nugs subscription – now 50% Off for a limited time!
