BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Live 1978 in Concert at the Agora Cleveland VINYL 6-LP SET

$

99

"Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Agora Ballroom 1978 The Classic Cleveland Broadcast" released in the UK in 2015 as three double albums (6 LP's in total) pressed on clear vinyl by Let Them Eat Vinyl records.  Only 1,000 copies were pressed.  The catalog numbers are:
1. Volume One (catalog number LETV250LP) 2. Volume Two (catalog number LETV252LP) 3. Volume Three (catalog number LETV253LP)
LP's 1 through 5 capture the complete broadcast of Springsteen's concert on August 9, 1978 for the Cleveland radio station WMMS 101 FM 10th Anniversary event.  The 6th LP features an interview with Bruce Springsteen on the Darkness Tour 1978.
Rolling Stone magazine calls it "simply the greatest live LP's this greatest of live rockers has ever released".  
See the full track listing and backstory on the concert event below.
The LP's and sleeves are in mint condition - like new.  Only played once and then carefully stored.
BUYER PAYS POSTAGE COST:
For mailing addresses in the USA, the buyer pays the postage cost using U.S. Postal Service Media Mail for a package that measures 15 inches length, 15 inches width, and 3 inches height, and weighs 4 pounds 8 ounces.
For mailing addresses outside the USA, the buyer pays the postage cost using U.S. Postal Service International Priority Mail for a package that measures 15 inches length, 15 inches width, and 3 inches height, and weighs 4 pounds 8 ounces.
FULL TRACK LISTING:
VOLUME ONE:
LP 1 Side A: 1. Intro 2. Summertime Blues 3. Badlands 4. Spirit in the Night LP 1 Side B: 5. Darkness on the Edge of Town 6. Factory 7. The Promised Land
LP 2 Side C: 8. Prove It All Night 9. Racing in the Street LP 2 Side D: 10. Thunder Road 11. Jungleland
VOLUME TWO:
LP 3 Side A: 1. Intro 2. Paradise by the C 3. Fire 4. Sherry Darling LP 3 Side B: 5. Not Fade Away 6. Gloria / She's the One
LP 4 Side C: 7. Growin' Up 8. Backstreets LP 4 Side D: 9. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
VOLUME THREE:
LP 5 Side A: 1. Intro 2. 4th of July Asbury Park 3. Born to Run LP 5 Side B: 4. Because the Night 5. Raise Your Hand 6. Twist and Shout
LP 6 Side C: Interview with Bruce Springsteen from the Darkness Tour 1978: 7. What's Up? 8. The Product 9. Get Some Specifics From You 10. The Sign on Sunset Strip 11. The Name Boss, Get Started 12. Any Kind Of Life 13. Feel Close To Them Fans 14. Get Together: The E Street Band LP 6 Side D: Interview with Bruce Springsteen from the Darkness Tour 1978: 15. Terrific Time 16. 13-14 Hear When You Heard Those Records 17. The Point Was 18. It's A Continuation 19. Met The Producer Jon Landau 20. Non Specific 21. Long Time 22. I Like It 23. Lot's More Somgs 24. Maybe So! Hard To Sing
BACKSTORY ON THE CONCERT EVENT:
It was a hot, muggy night and summer lightning lit up the sky. Fans slept on the sidewalk in front of Cleveland’s legendary Agora to get inside the general admission show. Cleveland's infamous radio station WMMS had been giving out free tickets and 1,200 people crammed into the venue, making it one of the biggest crowds ever. Those who didn’t get tickets could listen to the broadcast on WMMS. It would be the first time the station would simulcast an entire concert and it did so as part of its ten year anniversary. The broadcast was sent to six other stations in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Detroit and St. Louis. It’s estimated 3 million people tuned in to hear the show.
It was August 9, 1978 and it was meant to be the re-boot of Springsteen’s career but it almost didn’t happen. John Gorman was program director at WMMS at the time. He explained that after Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’ album dropped in 1975, Springsteen became an instant hit. But then Springsteen got into a legal battle with his management team and it would be nearly three years before fans would see him again. Being away for that long in the music business can cause a star to fade, so his record label, Columbia, knew a re-launch was essential. The idea was a live show tour broadcast on radio but Cleveland wasn’t on the list. "We don't need Cleveland because Springsteen never stopped being big in Cleveland,” Gorman says was the mindset of Columbia executives. But Gorman told Columbia, “The Cleveland audience will respond like no other audience in the country.” He was right.  The energy Cleveland fans brought to Springsteen’s show powered the artist for more than four hours. "I had never seen a performance like that. He really gave it, there's a reason why that's considered one of the best all time rock and roll concerts,” Gorman said.
Kid Leo, a disc jockey at WMMS at the time, was pretty tight with the Springsteen folks. "We wanted to have an act come and do our 10th anniversary show. We were pleasantly surprised and floored that Springsteen agreed to do it. So we booked the Agora,” former WMMS personality and music director Denny Sanders recalls. “We did tickets in a lottery. That was the only way to do it. I can’t tell you how many thousands of ticket requests we had. I don’t even remember. It was an amazing amount and it’s only less than a thousand people that can fit in the Agora. I don’t remember how we did it. I think we put them all in a big bag or something and just started picking things and made sure that if there was a duplicate, we would disqualify them and all of that. So that’s how we did the tickets, it was based on a lottery. When we were ready to go with the show, Columbia said, ‘This is really heavy, why don’t we make this available to other stations in other cities.’ They were owned by CBS in those days, so they had satellite channels available through CBS.” The concert was broadcast on WMMS and seven other stations nationally in the United States. According to Sanders, "It was one of the best….I think the critics usually say this was one of the best live performances that Springsteen ever did and you can hear it. His performance was just pedal to the metal, fifth gear, overdrive, full throttle — and it was thrilling, to see a mature act like that, in a small club up close, performing full throttle. You almost never see that. The power of that performance was just tremendous.” 
Former WMMS programmer John Gorman wrote in his book, "The Buzzard", that drummer Max Weinberg called it the best show that the E Street Band ever did. Max said, "The Agora was incredible, because it was one of the early shows we did after we finished the Darkness on the Edge of Town album and it was really hot and it wasn’t a very big place. It was packed. Kid Leo was broadcasting and you know, it was just one of those nights. It’s taken on a bit of a mythical quality, but it was to us that night, the band just really was hot. We had just started playing those songs."
Springsteen had begun to build up specific pockets of dedicated fans in certain markets and Cleveland was no exception. Springsteen would acknowledge them during his Agora performance, shouting out “Cleveland Boys, a little party noise!” prior to his performance of “Sherry Darling,” one of several then-unreleased tracks that he included in the setlist that night.
In his book, Gorman further details the events that led up to the eventual night, noting that Springsteen showed up in town a day early to hang out with the Cleveland Boys. Reportedly, E Street saxophonist Clarence Clemons had his radio stolen from his room at Swingos hotel prior to the show and naturally, he wasn’t pleased. Springsteen’s reference to Clarence and his need for a new radio during a sprawling performance of “Growin’ Up" lends a lot of credibility to the story. During the song, Bruce also details a visit to God — a trip where he also encountered Kid Leo, who was “prayin’ for more watts” for WMMS. And related to that last bit, Leo was blown away by the mid-song namecheck by Springsteen. “I never saw Leo cry. But that's probably the closest he ever came,” said Gorman. “I was standing with him when Springsteen said that. Leo was in shock.” 
Leo himself, a longtime supporter of Springsteen and his music, provided the memorable introduction for that evening’s concert, taking on the persona of a boxing announcer. “Round for round, pound for pound, there ain't no finer band around. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band!" The boxing theme carried forward as the band started their second set that night, with Springsteen offering up a spirited cry of “Alright, round two!” as Weinberg hit a cymbal in a fashion that sounded just like a boxing bell ringing in the next chapter of action, with Springsteen adding, “In this corner, weighing 260 pounds, the master of disaster, The Big Man, Clarence Clemons!,” introducing the instrumental “Paradise By The C,” a spotlight moment for Clemons, which ushered in the second set. 
But first, on the heels of Leo’s introduction at the beginning of the show, Springsteen and the band strolled onstage, with Bruce ribbing the WMMS DJ, “Leo, he must have memorized that at home. I know you did! Cleveland, how ya doin’? Are you ready to shake them summertime blues?” as Weinberg’s drums came thundering in. “Well, I’m a gonna raise a fuss/ I’m a gonna raise a holler,” Springsteen sang, he and the band digging into a version of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” to launch the evening, which would span two sets and more than 20 songs, running nearly three hours in total length. 
Gorman pointed out that it was Steve Popovich, legendary record man, who stepped in on Cleveland’s behalf to lobby with Columbia Records to make sure that Springsteen would wind up at the Agora that night. Because according to Gorman, there were other plans afoot at the label. "Originally it was Columbia's intent that the show was either going to be in Detroit or Chicago because those are the two larger markets,” Gorman recalls. “They were not looking at Cleveland, but it was a case of — we fought over it and we used the same line we used for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: if it’s in another city it’s just another concert, if it’s in Cleveland it is THE concert.” 
Listening to these albums, it's not hard to hear why the Agora concert is held in such high regard.  Springsteen did a handful of now-legendary radio broadcasts in key markets in 1978 during the Darkness on the Edge of Town.  What sticks out about the WMMS Agora broadcast — it was a night in which top to bottom, they got it all right. The songs, the stories, the ad-libs and the spirit of the night that’s captured in the recording, all generate an emotional feeling that 40 years later, will still remind you of that moment that you first became a Springsteen fan. Wherever you were, whatever you might have been listening to, the feeling of that first moment is all compiled and bottled in the Agora recording.