Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		5.0

The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story Blu-ray Movie Review

This impressive new compendium is a dream come true for Springsteen fans.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 23, 2010

Rock music, despite its supposed working class roots, is frequently the refuge of the poseur and faux artiste. When someone actually authentic comes along, the industry frequently doesn’t have the slightest clue as to how to handle them. The journey of Bruce Springsteen, arguably the most authentic (in every sense of the term) rock star of the past generation, found himself grist for the mill early in his career, something that casual fans may not even be aware of. After having had the notable distinction of appearing on the cover of simultaneously released issues of Time and Newsweek, and having his Born to Run album and single shoot to the top of the charts, Springsteen was expected to be a good little “product” and do as he was told. Springsteen’s decision to be his own—ahem—boss led to a long, enforced hiatus as a lawsuit between him and his manager Mike Appel made its contentious way through the legal system and Springsteen was actually legally prevented from getting into a recording studio to follow up his megaselling album. Columbia, his label, was equally insistent that Springsteen provide “more of the same,” with another quasi-“Wall of Sound” effort similar to Born to Run, something that Springsteen himself was just as insistent was neither his goal nor his artistic choice.

All of this backstage drama may actually be neither here nor there, but it provides a fascinating glimpse into the life of a young rock star who refused to play the game as it had been decreed from time immemorial (or at least the 1960s) by the “music machine”. While the Appel lawsuit may have kept Springsteen away from the studio, it couldn’t prevent him from continuing to write and to tour. When Darkness on the Edge of Town was finally released in 1978 after the Appel suit was settled, it marked the emergence of Springsteen as his own man and own artist. This was a leaner, sparer sound that concentrated, in Springsteen’s own words, on “the close confines of the small towns I grew up in.” What this incredible new boxed set (housed in an oversized slipcase which in turns holds a mock-up of The Boss’ original spiral-bound notebook in which he wrote his lyrics) makes clear is that Darkness on the Edge of Town is only the tip of a very considerably sized iceberg. Springsteen wrote a new note to his audience in July 2010 in this set where he divulges that over 40 songs—ten albums’ worth of material—were written for the Darkness sessions. A great deal of that material (21 songs) is included in the two supplemental CDs included herein, along with a newly remastered CD of Darkness itself. But the ultimate dream come true for the ardent fan may well be the three BDs included in this set, which feature a fascinating documentary on the background of Springsteen’s post-Born to Run success and eventual legal hassles, as well as two incredible sets of performance footage of the E Street Band circa 1976-1978, as well as a more recent 2009 concert in Springsteen’s own hometown of Asbury Park, New Jersey.

Blu-ray Disc One: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town
1080i; 88 minutes
While total Springsteen nuts are probably going to go straight for the concert footage included on the two other BDs in this massive set, those with an interest in getting up close and personal with The Boss, as well as all of the E Street Band and various hangers-on and professional associates, are going to salivate over this incredible piece of documentary filmmaking, which brought to mind some of D.A. Pennebaker’s groundbreaking work. This is a fascinatingly intimate portrait of Springsteen, filled not just with more or less contemporary musings by the now 60-something star, but also jam packed (pun intended) with lots of rehearsal footage while the band was on their enforced “vacation,” as well as actual black and white segments culled from recording sessions. What The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town makes abundantly clear is that the pop and rock music industry chews up artists as soon as it has made them stars, and that Bruce simply put his foot (and/or guitar) down and said that that wasn’t going to happen to him. Appel and Springsteen seem to have made at least partial peace with their long ago feud, and they’re both amazingly up front about the legal entanglements that led to Springsteen’s long hiatus from recording post-Born to Run. But in the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” department, this documentary also shows that Springsteen was more resolute than ever after the lawsuit was settled that he was the sole master of his fate and was going to chart his own course the way he wanted. This is documentary filmmaking at its finest, objective and non-sensationalized, providing ample time for all of the participants to voice their own opinions, letting the audience in on a backstage story with which they may be largely unfamiliar.

Blu-ray Disc Two: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Darkness at the Edge of Town, Paramount Theatre, Asbury Park 2009
1080p; 58 minutes

Some evocative black and white shots of Bruce’s hometown waterfront start out this incredible live performance, bringing to bear the sort of slightly dilapidated ambience of an amusement park at the water’s edge. A nice segue to color introduces us to the Paramount Theater, which Bruce and the boys rented just for this wonderful live version of Darkness at the Edge of Town. There’s no audience in attendance, just large mixing consoles at which a couple of engineers twist nobs and fiddle with sliding levers. For anyone who grew up with the album version of Darkness, this outing will be something of a minor revelation, with Bruce sounding at times a good deal fiercer than he did on the original version. He also lets loose with some blistering (if brief) solos on such tunes as “Adam Raised a Cain.” While this follows the album’s original running order, there are differences, sometimes subtle, abounding here, with a beautiful mix of instruments and some at times almost vicious drumming by Max Weinberg.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Thrill Hill Vault 1976-1978
1080i; 59 minutes

This hour or so of footage is going to be for Springsteen fans what finding a lost book of the Bible would be to a Hebrew scholar. Here are full segments, excerpted in the Making Of documentary on Disc One, of Bruce and the band rehearsing in New Jersey, as well as some great footage of the 1978 recording sessions which would ultimately produce Darkness at the Edge of Town. Finishing out the set is some live performance footage from a 1978 Phoenix concert. While some of the video quality here leaves something to be desired, the historical importance of these clips is immeasurable and help to provide some “fly on the wall” insight into Springsteen’s creative process. In fact one of the moments here is Bruce floundering at the piano as he attempts to craft “Candy’s Room” into a coherent song, and it proves that the seemingly “easy” elegance of a lot of Springsteen’s writing is actually hard won. This segment’s set list, so to speak, consists of:

Save My Love (Holmdel, NJ 76)
Candy’s Boy (Holmdel, NJ 76)
Something in the Night (Red Bank, NJ 76)
Don’t Look Back (NYC, 78)
Ain’t Good Enough For You (NYC, 78)
The Promise (NYC, 78)
Candy’s Room Demo (NYC, 78)
Badlands (Phoenix, 78)
The Promised Land (Phoenix, 78)
Prove It All Night (Phoenix, 78)
Born to Run (Phoenix, 78)
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (Phoenix, 78)

Blu-ray Disc Three: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Thrill Hill Vault Houston ’78 Bootleg House Cut
1080i; 1.33:1; 176 minutes

Springsteen has always given incredibly long concerts, and this Houston outing is no exception, running almost three hours and covering a huge swath of material from several albums. This BD features the worst video of the set, with bad flaring, ghosting and other artifacts, but it offers Bruce and the boys in fine form, tearing through one song after the other with virtually no let up in between. Springsteen is vigorous and almost manic at times, jumping around and getting the audience completely worked up time and again. The band is tight but is obviously having a ball, as is Bruce himself. This concert’s set list is:

Badlands
Streets of Fire
It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Spirit in the Night
Independence Day
The Promised Land
Prove It All Night
Racing in the Street
Thunder Road
Jungleland
The Ties That Bind
Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town
Fever
Fire
Candy’s Room
Because The Night
Point Blank
She’s the One
Backstreets
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
Born to Run
Detroit Medley
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
You Can’t Sit Down
Quarter to Three

The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

As is to be expected with a compilation gathering together video from a number of different sources, The Promise is a varied affair when it comes to image quality. The score above is therefore an average spread out over the three discs of this set. All three of the BDs have been encoded via AVC, but some are presented in 1080i and some in 1080p (see each individual title above for full details). All but the Houston concert are offered in 1.78:1, which means that a lot of the original 16mm and 35mm footage has been blown up and cropped to 16:9 standards. In terms of the image quality itself, the best is undoubtedly the 2009 Paramount Theatre concert, which was obviously filmed and is presented in full 1080p. While some of the fleshtones are a bit anemic due to over aggressive stage lighting, contrast and black levels are astounding, and the sharpness of the image is top notch. Moving down the quality scale, but only slightly, is the Making of documentary, which is presented in 1080i. The contemporary interview segments look great, and frankly a lot of the archival footage is surprisingly sharp, too, at least when the small millimeter formats of the original source elements is taken into account. The black and white studio footage looks a good deal sharper than the color rehearsal footage. While the studio footage is certainly not up to modern day standards, it's decently sharp with acceptable contrast. The rehearsal footage is invaluable as a resource, but the image itself is pretty soft, with bleeding colors and a lot of grain. By far the worst video is the Houston concert, presented in 1.33:1 and 1080i. This comes from a low level video master and is full of artifacts (within the source elements themselves, not part of the BD transfer). This is certainly the least pleasurable to watch, but it features such aggressive performances it's easy to overlook its shortcomings.

The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are no complaints whatsoever in terms of the audio quality of any of these three BDs. All but the Houston performance offer two lossless options, LPCM 5.1 and LPCM 2.0, with a lossy Dolby Digital surround 5.1 mix thrown in for good measure. The Houston concert offers an LPCM 2.0 stereo mix. While the documentary doesn't really exploit the surround channels, other than passing immersion in some of the archival footage, the Asbury Park concert is absolutely incredible, with crystal clear audio and brilliantly discrete channelization of the instruments. In fact this recording is so superb if you're like me you will hear all sorts of interior lines in this revisiting of Darkness at the Edge of Town that you probably never before realized existed. Fidelity is incredible, with a bombastic low end and bright, but never brittle, highs. The LPCM 2.0 mix of the Houston concert is excellent, if obviously narrow. While this narrowness may indeed create a "wall of sound" sonic feel that Springsteen didn't intend, it actually serves this relatively early collection of Springsteen material very well. There's little in the way of distortion here, and while the range of this recording certainly is no match for the 2009 Paramount outing, it's a suitably punchy mix for this more than 30 year old live performance.

The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

It's hard to know exactly what to call a supplement in this massive new set. There are no "extras" per se on any of the three BDs. But this beautiful package, housed in a nice slipcover, features an interesting spiral bound notebook, evidently a replica of one Springsteen used to jot down lyrics, which is full of a host of fascinating material. There are, of course, the three BDs themselves, as well as the three CDs mentioned above. There's a fantastically articulate 1998 letter from Bruce about Darkness at the Edge of Town, as well as a 2010 follow up. A glossy booklet includes typewritten lyrics to all of The Promise's extra material, in addition to several photos. Handwritten and typewritten lyrics fill several college-ruled lined pages in the notebook. Pictures also dot several pages. All in all, this is an extremely impressive package sure to delight any Springsteen fan.

The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're a Springsteen fan, there are simply no two ways about The Promise: you need to have it. You'll get to know Bruce as never before, and once again realize what a "real" and "authentic" star he is. Springsteen is sometimes dismissed by the intelligentsia for being too facile for his own good, but anyone with half a brain (and that unfortunately leaves some critics in the dust) will realize after wending their way through this incredible set that Springsteen has something that too few in any line of work have: absolute integrity. If you have a Springsteen fan on your holiday shopping list, consider your hunt for a present officially ended. The Promise receives my unabashed Highest Recommendation.