Classic Vinyl Bootleg Revisited: Is another WINTERLAND (3LP) a repress or an inferior pirate copy of the legendary bootleg?

Originally broadcasted on KSAN-FM radio from San Francisco, December 15th, 1978, the first night at the Winterland ballroom is probably the most bootlegged of all the concerts Springsteen has ever played. However, the live recordings are still in the vault and remain one of the most highly-anticipated releases for his official live archive series. In the vinyl era, LIVE IN THE PROMISED LAND (also known as WINTERLAND,1978 ), a triple-LP set originally released on the Slipped Disc Records label, was the most widely known among many titles bootlegging this concert. Although I don't think further explanations are needed, you can refer to some of the past posts for the information on this underground LP (for example, read here).

The famous 1978 live FM-broadcast concert from the West Coast was well captured on LIVE IN THE PROMISED LAND (left, first numbered box; center, second gate-fold edition), followed by the releases of various other bootleg titles including WINTERLAND (right).

As I already wrote somewhere on this blog series, back in my early days of vinyl collecting, I refrained from purchasing different titles or packaging of the same performance in order just to save money. The various bootleg editions of the Winterland concert were no exception, which included another triple-LP title simply called WINTERLAND, typically coming with a cheap yellow insert in a black box or a plain white sleeve. I've known of this bootleg since early in my collecting career, and for the reason described above, ignored it for a very long time. Recently, I had an opportunity to obtain a pristine used copy just for one coin (generally referring to a 500-yen coin in Japan), although back in the old days, I recall the average retail price was at least ten times higher than that.

WINTERLAND is a repress but not a pirate copy. Shown (upper) are the
two hand-etched matrix numbers on Side F/Disc 3 of WINTERLAND.
Note that the matrix number originally found on LIVE IN THE PROMISED
LAND (BS 2978-F, lower left) is crossed out on WINTERLAND (lower
right) and another code 8880-F is newly inscribed on the dead wax.
The same scratch is also found on all the other five sides.

The main reason for the purchase was to get the right answer to a trivial question I had had on this bootleg since I first saw (but not bought) the copies probably in 1981, at an import record shop in Kyoto City, my hometown. The question was whether it was a repress or a pirate copy of the legendary bootleg because the two sets represent exactly the same tracklist including a 10-min interview (Track 2/Side C/Disc 2) recorded in Tuscon, Arizona, two days before the Winterland concert (and aired during the intermission of the night). The best way to solve it was to examine the dead-wax matrix numbers. According to the bootleg section of BLINDED BY THE LIGHT (P. Humphries & C. Hunt, 1985; Plexus, London), the core matrix number that excludes a side-specific suffix is "8880" for the WINTERLAND discs, which differs completely from "BS2978" used for LIVE IN THE PROMISED LAND. This suggested that WINTERLAND is an independent pressing or a pirate reproduction of the famous bootleg.

However, what I saw on the deadwax of the six sides of the triple WINTERLAND discs were not only the predicted matrix numbers 8810-A/B/C/D/E/F, but also crossed-out codes which were read as BS 2978-A/B/C/D/E/F. The observation clearly showed that the two bootlegs share the common lacquer masters or metal mothers in the production, indicating that WINTERLAND is a repressing but not a pirate copy of LIVE IN THE PROMISED LAND. This sheds light on who was behind this bootleg.

THE AGORA SHOW bootleg discs carry Modern Jazz Records labels whose text is also faintly reverse-printed on the plain white label of Disc 3/Side F of WINTERLAND (right), a recent purchase.

A law suit Springsteen brought in 1979 against the Californian bootleggers, who made such classic 1978-tour bootlegs as LIVE IN THE PROMISED LAND and PIECE DE RESISTANCE, is so famous that I don't go into the details here (check here). Another interesting fact is that one of the plain white labels of my WINTERLAND discs carries a mirrored label image of "Modern Jazz Records." This label represents one of those (such as Ruthless Rhymes Ltd.) that were frequently used for West Coast-made bootlegs in the late 1970s. An example of such Brucelegs is THE AGORA SHOW, which captures another famous 1978 FM-radio broadcast concert in Ohio. So, I guess that these 1978-tour Brucelegs were probably manufactured in the same pressing plant in California by the same bootleggers (i.e., Vicky Vinyl and/or her conspirator).