Discussion Boards

56 sleeps

Well I tend to favour Greasy Lake(GL)http://www.greasylake.org/home.php  
and BTX http://backstreets.com/- the forum linked to Backstreets.  Other discussion boards are available.

As you would expect the peeps on both boards were on the ball and on 4th August there is a flurry of excitement - most folks wondering whether or not this actually indicates the box set is being released soon.

Alanio's post on GL on 5th August guessed the box would include 


Darkness box set deluxe with remastered album cd, cd2 with out-takes, The Promise making of dvd, Live '78 dvd
and prob
Darkness reissue cd package with remastered album and live/or making of dvd standard...

Not a bad prediction as it turns out

On BTX DennisC started The iftheydothingsright the Darkness Box set should be like ... on 10 Aug 2009 - Yes I did say 2009!

These were his thoughts at the time which are a little ambitious maybe but also not too far off the mark  ...

1) Remastered CD
2) CD of previously unreleased outtakes and alternative versions.
3) "The making of"-documentary. How the lawsuit and the years between albums affected Bruce and the band, how the record sessions went and the Tour
4) 2-DVD set of complete show with bonus tracks "Live at red Bank ´76.
If this box set don’t get released in the near future I will be pissed of, especially considering both Bruce’s and Landau’s confirmation that work have been done and is supposed to finish up in a release.

This thread actually goes on for 444 pages (to date) and I don’t intend to read every post but, after the announcement of the documentary, there were surprisingly few opinions.

In a nutshell most folks thought there would be some or all of :-

The documentary
CDs of outtakes
A live show from 1978.
Remastered CD
Booklet

Of course the devotees of Springsteen in the 70s are out in force, all sure that those of us who are too young to have been there, will soon know that Bruce was better then than any time since. Even going so far as to say the delay in the release was to stop bad comparisons between today’s band and the 70s band. 

The show from The Summit in Houston was a suggestion for the live show - apparently the venue had an in-house video system and snippets are around on You Tube.  A better bet, though, might be the second or third MSG shows which were professionally filmed.

Another BTX thread which started in August 2010 - The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town at TIFF began very happily then, as often happens over there, descended into an argument about whether or not you would travel for five hours to go to the premier - given that Bruce was going to attend.  Believe it or not someone dared to say they had better things to do with their life! 

********************

And we thought that Bruce might be going to Toronto because...

Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen is coming to TIFF, and so might disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.
The rock star and the politician are subjects of documentaries receiving world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival, Sept. 9-19, that are included amongst the 58 films announced Wednesday by TIFF.
Thom Zimny’s The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town documents the difficult gestation of Springsteen’s fourth album with his E Street Band.
The 1978 disc includes such classic tracks as “Badlands,” “Adam Raised a Cain” and “Candy’s Room.”
Zimny, who has been described as the New Jersey rocker’s personal archivist, worked with Springsteen on the film, using unreleased home footage shot from 1976-78. Zimny helped make two other Springsteen documentaries, one of which won him an Emmy (Live In New York City) and the other a Grammy (Wings for Wheels: The Making of Born to Run).
The pick of The Promise as a red-carpet Gala selection almost guarantees that Springsteen will come to Toronto to introduce it to the TIFF audience at Roy Thomson Hall. The festival won’t confirm his appearance, or the date of the Gala, until it announces its complete guest list, scheduled for Aug. 24.
The Promise includes scenes of the Boss and his band working on radically different versions of the songs on Darkness, including at least one tune that has never been released.
“It’s a pretty extraordinary look at the creative process of a musician,” said Thom Powers, TIFF’s documentary programmer.
“For Springsteen fans, it’s like a trip to heaven. And for people who have never tapped into him before, it’s still a worthwhile film.”