And finally... The annoncement

52 Sleeps

On August 26th 2010 we get the news we have been waiting for!






IT'S OFFICIAL: DARKNESS FALLS, NOVEMBER 16
Six-disc box set tells The Darkness on the Edge of Town StoryThe long-awaited Darkness on the Edge of Town reissue, originally expected for the 1978 album's 30th anniversary, has grown to enormous proportions for its release on November 16 as The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story. The 30th anniversary set for Born to Run comprised three discs, and it would have been reasonable to expect the same for Darkness; instead, this just-announced set doubles down, with six discs: three CDs, and three DVDs. (A 3-CD/3-BluRay edition will also be available.)
For this deluxe edition, the discs will be packaged with an 80-page notebook containing facsimiles from Springsteen's original notebooks from the recording sessions, which include alternate lyrics, song ideas, recording details, and personal notes in addition to a new essay by Springsteen and never-before-seen photographs.
So we're looking at more than six hours of film, and more than two hours of audio. Let's break it down

CD1: Darkness on the Edge of Town Digitally remastered for the first time (and in our view, the album most in need of such treatment)

CD2 and CD3: The Promise Two discs (which will also be released separately as a 2-CD set and a 4-LP set) containing 21 previously unreleased tracks from the Darkness sessions — songs that, as Springsteen writes, "perhaps could have/should have been released after Born to Run and before the collection of songs that Darkness on the Edge of Town became." Of this material Bruce also writes, "Darkness was my 'samurai' record, stripped to the frame and ready to rumble… But the music that got left behind was substantial." All 21 songs have been mixed by Springsteen's long-time collaborator Bob Clearmountain. According to long-time manager/producer Jon Landau, "There isn't a weak card in this deck. The Promise is simply a great listening experience."

The Promise Disc 1

• Racing in the Street ('78 rock version)
• Gotta Get That Feeling
• Outside Looking In
• Someday (We'll Be Together)
• One Way Street
• Because the Night (original studio recording)
• Wrong Side of the Street
• The Brokenhearted
• Rendezvous (original studio recording)
• Candy's Boy

The Promise Disc 2

• Save My Love 
• Ain't Good Enough For You
• Fire (original studio recording)
• Spanish Eyes
• It's a Shame
• Come On (Let's Go Tonight)
• Talk to Me (given to Southside Johnny)
• The Little Things (My Baby Does)
• Breakaway
• The Promise
• City of Night

DVD1: The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town. The documentary directed by Grammy- and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny. The 90-minute film combines never-before-seen footage of Springsteen and the E Street Band shot between 1976 and 1978—including home rehearsals and studio sessions—with new interviews with Springsteen, E Street Band members, manager Jon Landau, former-manager Mike Appel, and others closely involved in the making of the record. The documentary will first screen at the prestigious Toronto Film Festival on September 14 and will make its television debut on HBO on October 7.


DVD2: A mix of E Street new and old: first the modern-day E Street Band tackles the Darkness album from start to finish (remember back in December, when Bruce and the E Streeters were doing some closed-door filming at the Paramount Theater?), then a wealth of vintage clips from the Thrill Hill Vaults document the Darkness-era band, both in-studio and live.

Darkness on the Edge of Town (Paramount Theater, Asbury Park, NJ, 2009)
A performance of the album in its entirety, shot in HD without an audience and recreating the stark atmosphere of the original album.


Thrill Hill Vault, 1976-1978 From studio rehearsals to live performances, clips here include brand new cuts of the Phoenix footage, re-edited by Thom Zimny.

• Save My Love (Holmdel, NJ 76)
• Candy's Boy (Holmdel, NJ 76)
• Something in the Night (Red Bank, NJ 76)
• Don’t Look Back (NYC 78)
• Ain't Good Enough For You (NYC 78)
• The Promise (NYC 78)
• Candy's Room Demo (NYC 78)
• Badlands (Phoenix 78)
• The Promised Land (Phoenix 78)
• Prove It All Night (Phoenix 78)
• Born To Run (Phoenix 78)
• Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (Phoenix 78)

DVD3: Houston '78 Bootleg: House Cut A holy grail of sorts, this is the complete show from December 8, 1978, at the Summit in Houston, TX toward the end of the tour for Darkness on the Edge of Town. They're calling this a "bootleg house cut," as it's the footage that appeared on-screen at the concert.

• Badlands
• Streets of Fire
• It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City
• Darkness on The Edge of Town
• Spirit in the Night
• Independence Day
• The Promised Land
• Prove It All Night
• Racing in the Street
• Thunder Road
• Jungleland
• The Ties That Bind
• Santa Claus is Coming to Town
• The Fever
• Fire
• Candy's Room
• Because the Night
• Point Blank
• She's the One
• Backstreets
• Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
• Born to Run
• Detroit Medley
• Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
• You Can't Sit Down
• Quarter to Three

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.”