Classic Vinyl Bootleg Revisited: PAID THE COST TO BE THE BOSS and other bootlegs from the 1976-1977 Tour

Speaking of the Springsteen's officially sanctioned live archive series, I am one of those who have still continued to crave for old live performances of 1970s and 1980s. So, the most significant download to me this year was a twin release of Albany and Rochester concerts in New York, taken from the long-ignored period of 1976-1977 (covering the so-called "Chicken Scratch" and "Lawsuit" tours) that is excluded from LIVE/1975-85 and other official vinyl/digital releases. What was unexpected with the two sets of dowloads is that Springsteen has finally approved to use sub-standard recordings for official releases (i.e., These shows were recorded on cassette tapes). This fact may promise that more live archives, especially of classic performances early in his career, will follow as future releases, even if such recordings hardly meet Springsteen's standards in terms of sound quality.

The 1976-1977 tour bootlegs are initially released in the late 1970s to the early 1980s as excerpted concert live (upper three copies), and then appear in full or nearly complete form as triple-LP format in the mid-to-late 1980's (lower two). THE BOSTON BREAKER (mostly 25/03/1977, Boston MA; lower left) is released during the BORN IN THE USA tour (reported in the No. 14 issue of the Backstreets magazine published summer 1985) while IT'S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL (09/10/1976, South Bend IN; lower right) is one of the very last Brucelegs made in the end of the vinyl bootleg era last century, before the rise of bootleg CD industry early in the 1990s. 

The two archive releases have provided me with an opportunity to think back of vinyl bootlegs capturing the 1976-1977 era. Up to the early 1980s before the flood of bootlegs began due to the success of BORN IN THE U.S.A., there were probably only three or four titles of such bootleg albums in circulation (excluding reissues, bootlegged bootlegs and miscellaneous compilations with a few tracks from the time period):

• BLINDED BY LIFE (2LP; April 7, 1976, Cleveland, OH)
• LIVE IN PHILADELPHIA (1LP; date uncertain, probably August 22, 1976, Springfield, MA)
• PAID THE COST TO BE THE BOSS (1LP; Nov. 4, 1976, New York City, NY)
• ACTION IN THE STREET (1LP; March 25, 1977, Boston, MA)

All these releases are listed on the late Chris Hunt's great bootleg file in the Blinded By The Light book (P. Humphries & C. Hunt, 1985, Plexus, London), although I am not certain whether ACTION IN THE STREET indeed came out before the release of the official 7th album (see below). To me, just like many other collectors back then, the Backstreets magazine was also a useful source for bootleg information, and we can still follow the releases of these old vinyl bootlegs (except ACTION ...) chronologically in the relevant columns or articles that are found in the old issues.  

A vinyl bootleg series of so called "LIVE IN PHILADELPHIA 1976". A total of 12 songs
(counting Mona/She's The One as two separate songs) on the original LIVE IN
PHILADELPHIA (upper right) and Volume Two of the same title (upper left; bought
on October 1984) are put together and released as STREETS ON FIRE from Europe
in the mid-to-late 1980s, although all three encore songs are still missing.

LIVE IN PHILADELPHIA is the first bootleg I obtained among the four listed above. This bootleg LP was mentioned twice in the magazine, first in the issue No. 2 in the article entitled New Slew of bootlegs (in which the bootleg title is only mentioned as one of the several new releases including the famous Swedish THE RIVER tour bootlegs), and then in the next issue (No. 3) with a brief review that is found in the "On record" column titled More new bootlegs than you can imagine: "We also really like the not-so new any more boot called Live in Philadelphia. This has been out for quite a while though it's fairly new to us. Nice quiet live versions are on this record. This is also cheap and available". The issue No. 3 does not report anything about NEBRASKA (which is featured in the issue No. 4), and according to my purchase log, I bought this bootleg on February 1982 at an import record store in Kyoto (the ancient capital of Japan where I was born and raised). Therefore, by the end of 1981, it almost probably was out in collectors' market. My first impression on sound quality was excellent and through this bootleg, for the first time, I was able to experience the live performances in this era, although the LP contains only excerpts from the concert and does not cover the entire show (Spirit In The Night and Thunder Road are incomplete).

The rear sleeve of BLINDED BY LIFE misprints the track list of a solo concert performed by Keith Richards (left: Image taken from Eddy's Bruce Springsteen Lyrics website), which is corrected with a large sticker pasted over it (right). Still, many sloppy errors are evident in the song titles.

BLINDED BY LIFE is reviewed in the magazine issue No. 10 (Summer 1984), in the "On record" column with the title New bootlegs reviewed by Steve Reed [BITUSA Tour is still not covered in this issue but from the next issue (No. 11)]. I bought a brand new copy of this double bootleg at another import shop in Kyoto on June 1984, which indicates its release being early 1984 (or late 1983). Despite a few shortcomings (mainly on the incorrect song titles: see the image above), it overall receives positive reviews ("the best of recent boots" with excellent sound quality; containing a great live version of Frankie; reasonable retail prices of $15 tops). I remember back then I concurred mostly with the reviews although the reviewer missed one serious point that almost all tracks suffered from truncation at the beginning, ending, or both, possibly due to poor editing or defects of the source tapes used for manufacturing this vinyl title.

Not in my possession (Image taken from Discogs website)

ACTION IN THE STREET is a Scorpio Records release (which I don't own). As far as I checked, there are no relevant information about this bootleg in any issues of the Backstreets magazine. If this LP was released around the same time another Scorpio title The River That Talks (a double 7" set consisting of four THE RIVER outtakes/alternate versions) began to circulate, it would be around in 1983, as the bootleg single is favorably reviewed in the "On vinyl" column of the magazine issue No. 7 ("above the normal standards of bootlegs"; "rivals officially released recordings in both sound quality and graphic presentation").

PAID THE COST TO BE THE BOSS is the first available title among the four bootlegs, possibly released in the late 1970s. According to Blinded By The Light, this LP was originally pressed on purple/blue vinyl with Hanging Man labels. Such copies are described as "very rare". In fact, I've seen most of copies in circulation being single-colored vinyls with blank labels, and seldom encountered the said original version. I don't exactly remember when I obtained my original copy (which is not recorded and missing on the purchase log). Probably in the late 1980s or early 1990s.
— To be continued.