Radioshow Disc: ROCK ON THE ROAD Part II: The American Bands 5LP w/ Prove It All Night - Berkeley live 1978

Side three containing two live tracks,
Bishop Danced (NYC, 1973) and
Prove It All Night (Berkeley, 1978)

If you weigh official products over bootlegs for unreleased or live materials that are not available on regular releases, this set should be the one to get. This is because, to the best of my knowledge, the multi-disc radioshow set is the only official vinyl release where you can listen to the long-intro live recording of Prove It All Night (July 1st, 1978), that was originally planned to be released as a promo-only 12" vinyl in 1978, and later considered for inclusion in LIVE 1975/85 in 1986. So far not released in any CD format officially. A few copies of the acetate disc for the planned 12" vinyl are known to exist. One of such copies was put on auction in 1997 by Backstreets Records, with the minimum starting bid of $1,000. The auction catalog (issued in Spring 1997) introduces this item as follows:

How much value now?

In 1978, Columbia considered releasing a live version "Prove It All Night" as recorded at the Berkeley Community Theater 7/1/78. They went so far as to release reel to reel tapes of this 7:45 performance to radio station – some stations still play this tremendous version of this song and it was considered (but left off) the LIVE 75-85 album. Stickers for the cover of the 12-inch were printed up and eventually found their way into collector's hands. This however, more than a sticker – this is an actual Columbia Records acetate (with a "Mastering Lab" printed label) of this incredible performance. It comes in a white CBS "Demonstration, Not for Sale" jacket with the famous sticker on the cover. Also included is a sheet of mastering instructions and a Xerox of the proposed white label (it would have been given the number AS480 and it was planned to be released only two weeks after the show). However, the project was scrapped and vinyl copies of this 12-inch release were never pressed – this acetate was as far as the process ever got. Hence, this item is the only official issue of this historical live track. The quality of this recording is amazing....

Looking like a test pressing – a nice idea

As far as I know, this famous live recording was bootlegged only once in the vinyl era: FILE UNDER BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN was (and still is) the only vinyl bootleg that contains this version of Prove It All Night. This is a 12-inch 33 rpm release, often mistakenly referred to as picture disc in major Bruceleg guidebooks, most probably due to the enlarged picture labels on the colored wax [for example, check the description on Blinded By The Light by Patrick Humphries and Chris Hunt (1985) or the first volume of the Wanted magazine by Jan Rodenrijs (1994)]. Coupled with is Bishop Danced (from NYC 1973) that is also featured in this radioshow LP and released commercially in 1998 as one of the two live tracks on the TRACKS boxset. By comparative listening, it is apparent that this bootleg is made using this radioshow disc as the sound source.

By the way, despite the soundboard recording available on the acetate, reel-to-reel tapes (that were sent out to radio stations instead of the aborted promo-only 12" vinyl) and the radioshow LP, as noted above, this particular live version was rarely bootlegged in the vinyl era. I've long thought this being curious. Was it because radio stations overplayed this live recording? I guess probably not. Then why?

 — To be continued.