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Acclaimed Springsteen and music photographer, PJay Plutzer, is back to share another concert experience. This time he details the iconic Winterland shows:
It was December of 1978, two weeks before the final notes would be played on New Year’s Eve at Bill Graham’s famed Winterland Ballroom that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band brought the Darkness on the Edge of Town tour to San Francisco.
Biographer Dave Marsh wrote in 1987, “The screaming intensity of those ’78 shows are part of rock and roll legend in the same way as Dylan’s 1966 shows with the Band, the Rolling Stones’ tours of 1969 and 1972, and the Who’s Tommy tour of 1969: benchmarks of an era.” Whereas the previous Born to Run tour established Springsteen as one of the top live acts, the Darkness tour blew everything else away, delivering some of his best performances and most legendary full-length concerts, and making him the ‘must-see’ musician of his generation.
At Winterland, 44 years ago, on December 15th and 16th, 1978, Springsteen and the E Street band blew the roof off the place and would add their names to that long list of the greatest legendary shows ever performed at the esteemed venue.
The Winterland show on the 15th was to be the fifth and last of the shows to be broadcast live on the radio on KSAN-FM.
“Tonight you are gonna hear the concert of your life”, the radio announcer at KSAN stated to those listening and he was absolutely right! With Bill Graham’s introduction of the band, “The chairman of the board, the great one, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band”, the band started at a fever pitch level with “Badlands” that didn’t stop over the entire 25-song set. On the 16th, Graham’s intro, “Rather than tell you about last night, which was magic, let’s just talk about tonight, on a Saturday night in San Francisco, Mr. Bruce Springsteen”, the band started with a song that would set the tone to the evening and this night's 25 song set, “Good Rockin’ Tonight”.
These shows will always be remembered as two of the greatest performances in the band’s history and the history of the Winterland Ballroom.
Photos by PJay Plutzer, Prisoner of Rock and Roll Photos
