The Agora, Cleveland 1978

Bruce Springsteen gave diehard fans a surprise holiday gift this week, releasing the first-ever official recording of his fabled and much-bootlegged Aug. 9, 1978, "Darkness on the Edge of Town" club gig with the E Street Band at Cleveland's Agora Theatre and Ballroom. The new stereo mix -- made from original tapes of the show -- popped up for download Christmas week on the Boss' new archival concert website, live.brucespringsteen.net. It is available in high-definition audio, as well as on a three-CD set and MP3 and CD-quality downloads. The live album will be released Jan. 23, but the downloads are available now.
 The Agora show was staged by Cleveland rock station WMMS/100.7-FM to celebrate its 10th anniversary and was simulcast to other radio markets in the Midwest. It captured Springsteen and the E Street Band at the height of their powers, after the success of "Born to Run" and just as "Darkness on the Edge of Town" was being released. Bootlegs of the show -- recorded over the radio -- have circulated for decades, making the Agora concert a favorite among diehard Springsteen fans. The newly minted official recording features 22-songs. It was made from seven 1/4-inch tape reels found in boxes of material loaned by Springsteen to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum for its "From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen" exhibit. That's according to online liner notes written by Springsteen's concert archivist Toby Scott for live.springsteen.net. The exact source of the tape is still unclear, but Scott writes that he compared it to other existing copies of the show, and that "this was the best version and potentially the original master tapes. ... The resulting new master will give a renewed vigor to the already exciting show." It is likely that the material comes from an audio feed that went to a production truck parked outside the Agora that night to broadcast the concert, according to John Gorman, program director at WMMS at the time of the show. Another audio feed went to Agency Recording Studios, upstairs at the Agora. The late Hank LoConti, founder of Agora, tried to convince Springsteen's management to release those Agency recordings over the years, even going so far as to create a limited editon four-disc boxed set to sell them on the project. But the Springsteen camp passed on the partnership and LoConti ended up donating the tapes to the Western Reserve Historical Society. "This show is the definition of a great rock 'n' roll concert," says Gorman, who led WMMS during its Buzzard heyday. "It really captures the raw emotion and excitement of a live performance by a group of people that played together better than any other band I knew. "Everything was perfect. And the audience was as important to that show as the band. The energy just travelled back and forth that night. There are hundreds and hundreds of Springsteen concert recordings available. But there is none quite like this one. This one really captures the band at the height of its power."