Darkness on the edge of a Saturday morning

It was one of those days. I spent most of Friday in some form of physical discomfort -- a constant tightening in the chest and the feeling that I had strained every muscle in my torso. When I struggled back to the hacienda between 5:30 and 6 p.m., I wrote for a little while until, absolutely exhausted, I fell into bed around 6:30 p.m. I slept until 10 p.m. or so, and when I awoke, I came back downstairs, wrote a little more and, around 11:30, decided to check the mail. I spotted it as soon as I opened the front door: the package containing my copy of The Promise: Darkness on the Edge of Town box set.

Now I had already downloaded the double CD The Promise the day it was released and although I dearly love the Darkness on the Edge of Town album, Bruce Springsteen's masterpiece for me will always be Born to Run. In fact, I'm willing to argue that it is the best rock album of all time. So I skipped the remastered Darkness CD and focused my attention on the three DVDs included in the set.I figured since it was getting close to midnight, I should just watch one of the three and, of course, I picked out the longest one, a three-hour Springsteen concert recorded in 1978 in Houston.

I picked this one because as many times as I have seen the Boss in concert since 1972, there is no question he and the E-Street Band reached their performing peak in 1978, the tour that etched in granite Springsteen's rightful place as the greatest live concert act ever and the E-Street Band as the best live rock band of all time. And the Houston show didn't disappoint. The only thing missing was any of the stories Springsteen use to tell while introducing songs during that tour. But that's OK, because the set list is magnificent. The most pleasant surprise for me was something I had not seen before -- an musical interchange between saxophonist Clarence Clemons and organist Danny Federici during Fever. It almost made my leap from my couch and give my television screen a one-person standing ovation.

So now it's after 3 a.m. and during the next couple of days I will make sure I find the time to visit the other two DVDs (I've heard some wonderful reports from friends who saw at the Toronto Film Festival the documentary on the making of Darkness that's included on the first DVD). But I'm not going to do it right now.

However, I will take a few more moments to whisper to all the Bruce fans out there, or anyone interested in the legacy of rock 'n' roll in the context of what otherwise was the dismal disco decade, you owe it to yourself to make the investment in this box set. From what I've heard and watched and read already, I promise you it's a treasure.