The Promise Fulfilled: Springsteen's Darkness On The Edge Of Town Goes Deluxe

Bruce Springsteen has redefined the re-issue with the November 16 release of his masterwork Darkness On The Edge Of Town.

I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. Yes, I've been given to hyperbole where Springsteen is concerned in the past. I've even been accused of being overly critical where Springsteen is concerned but this set, as announced today, is perhaps the best-constructed monstrosity of a re-issue I've ever encountered.

Darkness has been remastered and will be released as a 3-CD/3-DVD set as well as a 3-CD/3-Blu-ray package featuring a metric buttload of previously unreleased studio and live material. The first CD of the set is the remastered version of the album. Discs 2 and 3 will be sold separately for fans who don't want to spring for the deluxe version – although I can't imagine any Springsteen fan who won't want it all – in a package called The Promise. The 21 songs from this CD all date back to the original sessions from Darkness. These have been remixed and according to E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt some of the tracks have had a few touch-ups done to them.

"We're doing a little bit of fixes on some Darkness on the Edge of Town outtakes," he told Rolling Stone magazine. "We'll go back and he might finish a lyric on one or two, or finish a harmony on one or two, but we'll keep them intact pretty much."

Several songs on these two discs became live favorites but have never been released as studio tracks until now. Here is the tracklisting for these Darkness sessions:

CD 2: THE PROMISE (DISC 1)

1. Racing In The Street ('78)
2. Gotta Get That Feeling
3. Outside Looking In
4. Someday (We'll Be Together)
5. One Way Street
6. Because The Night
7. Wrong Side Of The Street
8. The Brokenhearted
9. Rendezvous
10. Candy's Boy

CD 3: THE PROMISE (DISC 2)

1. Save My Love
2. Ain't Good Enough For You
3. Fire
4. Spanish Eyes
5. It's A Shame
6. Come On (Let's Go Tonight)
7. Talk To Me
8. The Little Things (My Baby Does)
9. Breakaway
10. The Promise
11. City Of Night

Now on to the DVDs. The first DVD is a documentary called The Promise: The Making of 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town' and was directed by award-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny. The documentary includes interviews with Springsteen, members of the E Street Band, longtime Springsteen manager and confidant Jon Landau, and former Springsteen manager Mike Appel.

The other two DVDs focus on Springsteen and The E Street Band on stage mainly during what many longtime fans consider the greatest tour in their history and one of the great tours of all time.

DVD 2 captures the band playing Darkness in its entirety at a club in Asbury Park, New Jersey in 2009. The rest of that DVD takes live performances from various shows from 1976 and 1978. The third disc is a 26-song edit of their show in Houston in 1978.

Article Author: Josh Hathaway

Josh Hathaway began with Blogcritics in August 2004 and served as writer, editor, and also hosted the beloved but short-lived BC Radio podcast. He also founded the music web site BlindedBySound.com. Follow me on Twitter …

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