The Complete Back Door Tapes (Uber Series #42) Date: 1971-10-30 (Disc 1 tracks 01-05), Location: Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA (Disc 1 tracks 01-05) Date: 1972-02-xx Location: Backdoor Club, Richmond, VA Label: - Catalog #: - Taper: ? Source: Audience Tape Transferred By: ? Transfer & Generation info: Disc 1: (73:56) 01 Got My Mojo Workin' (7:24) 02 Livin' Rock N Roll (4:37) 03 I Remember #1-I'm Into Something Good #1 (8:59) 04 Talkin' Bout My Baby (9:10) 05 Don't You Want to be an Outlaw (9:53) Back Door Tapes: 06 Down the Road Apiece (6:26) 07 Make Up Your Mind (6:26) 08 Like a Stranger (5:30) 09 The Band's Just Boppin' the Blues (10:09) Disc 2: (79:10) 01 I Just Can't Change #1 (6:09) 02 Down to Mexico #1 (5:26) 03 Sittin' On Top Of The World (4:46) 04 I Remember #2 (14:57) 05 I'm Into Something Good #2 (5:34) 06 Darkness, Darkness (5:49) 07 Darkness, Darkness cont. (0:05) 08 Darkness, Darkness end (5:41) 09 Magic Kind Of Lovin' (4:49) 10 Cowboys Of The Sea (9:45) 11 When You Dance (12:02) 12 When You Dance end (4:07) Disc 3: (70:04) 01 Love is a Crazy Thing (5:56) 02 Bright Lights Big City (13:39) 03 I Just Can't Change #2 (6:34) 04 All I Wanna Do Is Dance #1 (9:13) 05 Down To Mexico #2 (4:46) 06 Bless My Soul(cut) (3:38) 07 Bless My Soul (7:02) 08 Down to Mexico #3 (4:56) 09 Something You Got (6:49) 10 All I Wanna Do Is Dance #2 (7:31) Disc 4: (24:47) 01 I Remember #3 (14:20) 02 Bless My Soul #2 (10:27) Known faults: Notes from 1971-10-30 show: ONE show, double bill, with The Bruce Springsteen Band opening for headliner CACTUS. As the undercard, Springsteen’s show would have been limited to around 60 minutes. The above-mentioned setlist is taken from an audience recording of fair quality that started circulating in 1984 and then widely propagated after it was booted onto vinyl in 1986, courtesy of the LP “BRUCE 1971” (Good Taste Records). Both the early circulating tape specimens and the 1986 LP identified the source venue for the audio as the Virginia Commonwealth University Gym. Seemingly as a consequence of no 1971 VCU gig being identified by any 1980’s or 1990’s concert history sources, some people began linking this audio to Springsteen’s headlining performance at University Of Richmond on 23/10/71. Although the manner in which the MC introduces the band (i.e., “from New Jersey”) clearly points to this as being a Richmond performance, the very subdued audience reaction to the MC’s introduction is not consistent with the BSB being the headliner. For these reasons BRUCEBASE has placed this audio under this recently unearthed gig date at VCU, although there is still a slight chance that another contending Richmond gig during this time period will surface. This 40 minutes of audio circulates these days via homemade CDR titles, sometimes with material from other shows added. The circulating audio is likely to represent most of Bruce’s show, with perhaps one or two songs (encores?) missing. Both “Livin’ Rock And Roll” and “Talking About My Baby” are not currently available via any other audio source. Bruce would later utilized the melody from “Talkin’ About My Baby” for his vastly superior 1972 composition “Janey Needs A Shooter”. The BSB lineup heard on the audio is the core 5-piece band, plus the vocal duo of Delores Holmes & Francine Daniels (the ladies are heard on the three Springsteen compositions but not the two cover songs). This is currently the only positively identified appearance of Francine Daniels with the BSB, as all previous 1971 gigs seem to involve Barbara Dinkins partnering with Delores Holmes. Notes From 1972-02-xx Back Door show: ONE show, with THE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN BAND the sole act on the bill. This was opening night of 9-show residency that encompassed three of the four weekends in February. The above-mentioned 19-songs are culled from circulating audience audio from the 9-show residency that would seem to encompass parts of four of these nine shows – consequently there are multiple performances of some songs (a total of 25 recordings encompassing 229 minutes). Most of these 25 recordings have been in circulation since the mid 1980’s and more than half have been issued on various mainstream bootleg titles. The remainder of the audio is only circulating via private CDR sources. The overall sound quality is good. The so-called “Backdoor Club Tapes” represent some of the most perplexing live audio to sort out, primarily due to the fact that nearly all the between-song audio appears to have been cut by the original taper prior to the audio entering into collector circulation. Because of the lack of audio continuity it is extremely difficult to tell which recordings emanate from which shows - and virtually impossible to decipher the correct running order. Although the shows of Feb 4th and 26th are often cited on trade lists, these two dates appear to based on the fact that for many years these were the only two dates known to have been played at the club. It is now known the residency was much longer, so this material could be from any of the shows. However it is more likely that most of it comes from the final weekend’s performances. Southside Johnny was a guest on the first weekend. However Southside’s harp playing is only heard on one track, “Bright Lights Big City”. Bruce handles the harmonica on “Just Cant Change”, one of his better songwriting efforts of 1971. Two other standout songs are “Like A Stranger” and “Make Up Your Mind”. The most interesting track is the full band version of “Cowboys Of The Sea” – a song that clearly foreshadows the change of lyric style that Bruce was adopting at the time Infofile updated: 2008-02-27