Classic Vinyl Bootleg Revisited: ALL THOSE YEARS — unofficial but the first retrospective release of a supectacular 10-LP box collection (Part 2 of 3)

"You certainly love Bruce Springsteen and his music. That's sure because only true lovers can buy a ten record set; this album has been made for guys like you. So we can avoid talking about how great he is, and how good his songs are: we both know. Here we want to introduce to you these records, that, of course, are the results of a deep passion and lengthy work. They contain recordings from twelve years of Springsteen's career, trying to cover every tour he has made."
Quoted from the preface of the booklet included in ALL THOSE YEARS.

As I wrote in the last blog (02/23/2024), my financial status as a university student did not allow me to purchase this magnificent release when I first saw it was out in 1984.  Undoubtedly, a 10-LP bootleg was a surprising and impressive release in its volume alone, and the concept every hard-core collector can share was well-represented by the accompanying 20-page booklet. To be honest, however, I did not become engrossed in this box too much initially because of the extraordinarily high price and because I much preferred live bootlegs of a whole or nearly complete single concert (just like the Official Live Archive series) to those of compilations from various locations. The latter reason also mainly explains why I wouldn't say I liked the official live retrospective box released in 1986 (see 11/21/2019).

Before the flood of vinyl Brucelegs in the mid-1980s, mostly from
Europe, colored vinyls were still relatively rare. This live compilation
single LP was obtained in September 1983 at 3,380 JPY (roughly
US $14 and, based on Inflation Calculator, estimated to be $44 in
2024) from Kinnie, Japan's most famous vinyl bootleg shop in
West Shinjuku (西新宿) during the 1970s and 1980s.

Moreover, live-compilation bootlegs in the early 1980s were often based on random collections of previously bootlegged live recordings, which usually disappointed me (for example, PRISONER OF ROCK 'N' ROLL; see the image right). Finally, the full tracklist for the entire twenty sides of the ten vinyl discs remained unknown to me as it was only found in the booklet inside the box package. So, it wasn't until detailed bootleg discographies became available, such as the bootleg section of Blinded By The Light (P. Humphries & C. Hunt, 1985, Plexus, London), that I really got interested in this unofficial retrospective box.

"Even true lovers as you are, know better some periods of Springsteen musical life and don’t know much about others, so we have tried to give more room to some years than to others. We believe it would have been useless including different versions of Born To Run and Racing In The Street or many excerpts from the Darkness On The Edge Of Town tour; we’d bet all of you that have bought this set, have already got Piece De Resistance or Live In The Promised Land.”
Quoted from the preface of the booklet.

If I'm not mistaken, the different versions of Born To Run (still unreleased) and Racing In The Street (officially released in 2010 on THE PROMISE), both mentioned in the booklet's preface (see immediate above), appeared for the first time on "E" TICKET and DO I HAVE TO SAY HIS NAME?, respectively. Besides masterpieces like the former, the latter has been one of my favorite studio outtake bootlegs ever since it was originally released as a black vinyl with custom black labels, followed by several colored vinyl versions and a picture disc edition. I bought the black vinyl version on July 1982 when I was a high-school boy, through mail order from a record shop in Kobe (神戸) City at the expense of 4,000 JPY (equivalent to circa US $16 back then, which would cost $50 in 2024). Note that DO I HAVE TO SAY HIS NAME? is most probably the earliest bootleg known to feature Jersey Girl (live), the same version later included in both the unofficial and official retrospective live box sets.

As can be known from the preface to the accompanying booklet (see the second quotation above), more than half of the live recordings in this box were unheard of or unfamiliar to me as of early 1984. However, when I acquired my first copy (an unnumbered reissue) in 1987, not a small portion of these live recordings (for example, Steel Mill live, a Cleveland 1976 concert, and THE RIVER-tour rehearsal session) had already been available on several other independent bootlegs, and one live track (Jersey Girl) had been released officially. So, it was the early E Street material between 1972 and 1974 on Discs Two to Four that mainly gave me a fresh and thrilling LIVE experience "through the magic of bootlegging" (for example, see 11/13/2023).

Two CD editions of the 10-LP box set were released in Italy in the
early 1990s: first LIVE AND UNRELEASED 1971-1979 (4CD) from
Seagull Records, then followed by ALL THOSE YEARS (5CD) from
Templar Records. The former was a straightforward copy of the vinyl
set without the tracks on the last two vinyl discs (Records 9 and 10),
possibly avoiding a copyright protection issue (bootleggers' 10-year
rule; of course, that was not legitimate). The latter employed the same
tapes used for the vinyl edition, although the set eliminated three
tracks (Oh Mama Why, Sha La La, and Wreck On The Highway)
likely due to space limitations. My Seagull copy (Discs 3 and 4) got
hit by "CD-rot" and lost its readability soon after I purchased it in
1990, like some early copies of Great Dane titles (2022/10/28).

 

I often think if there were a few weaknesses in this 10-LP set, the 1980 and 1982 parts might be considered: the aforementioned tour rehearsal in Lititz, Pennsylvania, and two club appearances in New Jersey. Although such recordings were rare and interesting, in my opinion, the period could have been better represented by other superior sources in terms of live performance, such as the 1981 "Vietnam Veterans" concert. As far as I remember, there was only one song from this benefit show that was bootlegged in the vinyl era (namely, the one and only, and simply stunning performance of Ballad Of Easy Rider, captured on WHO'S BEEN COVERED BY THE BOSS, another live compilation triple picture-disc bootleg).

— Continued to Part 3 / Back to Part 1.