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“The E Street Shuffle” (live, February 5, 1975 at the Main Point, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; unreleased)



The Main Point

by Brian Wall

The version of the E-Street Band that toured during the winter of 1975 existed for a brief moment. Drummer Max Weinberg and pianist Roy Bittan had recently joined, violinist Suki Lahav had neared the end of her brief tenure as a touring (and with the ensuing Born to Run session, recording) member of the band, and now iconic sideman Steven Van Zandt was still several months away from joining. On February 5, the band played a benefit for the Main Point, a small venue in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania to be broadcast on the radio on local station WMMR. Springsteen, in between sessions for his forthcoming Born to Run album, wanted to play new material, only to be talked out of an exclusively unreleased setlist that night. The performance still circulates among traders for a number of reasons. First, the quality of the soundboard recording (and also, its dissemination on FM radio) made it one of the highest quality live recordings for many years. More importantly, Springsteen and his band played for roughly 160 minutes, his longest set to date, combining a mix of previously released materials, cover songs, and unreleased works-in-progress. It was the latest (and perhaps most significant) step toward greatness for Springsteen and the E-Street Band.

The setlist that night at the Main Point alternated between new and old, ballads and barnburners, and short bursts and extended jams. The show opens with a gorgeous, near ten-minute version of “Incident on 57th Street,” accompanied primarily by Bittan’s nimble piano and Lahav’s legato violin. Then, the rest of the band joins for a cover of Harold Dorman’s “Mountain of Love,” introduced by Springsteen as a “noisy” song. “Born to Run” follows in its completed arrangement, followed with a drastically reworked “E-Street Shuffle.” Afterward, the band debuted a song known then as “Wings for Wheels,” the working version of Born to Run’s opener “Thunder Road.” That’s just the first five songs, too.

Several of the Born to Run tracks appeared on the setlist that night, and while the arrangement of the title track will sound familiar to those who have turned on a radio in the last four decades, many of the Born to Run songs appeared with slightly different lyrics. “She’s the Onefeatured its Bo Diddley riff and the same melody as the recorded version, but with extra verses (including a few lines that would later appear in “Backstreets”). In a couple cases, particularly “Jungleland” and “Wings for Wheels / Thunder Road,” the arrangements performed that night changed considerably in the recording sessions with Jon Landau that began a month later.

Some of Springsteen’s older songs changed as well. In particular, “The E-Street Shuffle” in 1975 wasn’t the same jangly rave-up appearing on Springsteen’s second album. Instead, the band laid down an extended, slower groove relying heavily on rim knocks and organ. Over this extended intro, Springsteen told the story of a late night encounter with a shadowy figure on the streets of Asbury Park, New Jersey. Springsteen described his efforts to avoid this stranger only to meet him face to face trapped in a doorway. At the climax of the story, Springsteen snaps into “The E-Street Shuffle’s” first line, rendering the previous story as an extended introduction to the song’s lyrics. This theatrical approach foreshadowed the overtures and melodrama that made Born to Run Springsteen’s most ambitious work to date. In retrospect, Springsteen’s new arrangement of “The E-Street Shuffle,” coupled with the showstopping arrangement of “Incident on 57th Street,” previewed just as much of the tone of his next release as the new songs played that night.

With the benefit of nearly four decades of hindsight, it’s easy to see why some cite the Main Point show as the night where the E-Street Band became legendary. It coupled frenetic songs with the quiet, emotionally loaded performances, drew on the band’s encyclopedic knowledge of rock history (and the spontaneity available to a band with that kind of shared knowledge), and gave a glimpse into the marathon sets that would later become the band’s signature. If the songs for Born to Run weren’t up to Springsteen’s standards quite yet, his band was ready for the spotlight the album’s acclaim would bring them.

This is the first of two posts I wrote about Bruce Springsteen’s show in February 1975 at the Main Point. I thought you might want to read it.

There have been some incredible things written this week (most recently the post on “Wings for Wheels” that follows this post chronologically) that I encourage you to check out the whole week. I’ll share my “Jungleland” post tomorrow. 

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