Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Lloyd Noble Center
Norman, Oklahoma
December 1, 1978
(Recorder 1 w/Recorder 2 Patches)

2017 Transfer: Analog Tape Trade > Nakamichi DR-01 azimuth-adjusted playback > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity > Peak Pro XT (pitch adjusted) > iZotope RX / Ozone 5 (mastered) > Peak Pro 6 (post production) > xACT 2.37 > FLAC

01 Balands
02 Streets Of Fire
03 Spirit In The Night
04 Darkness On The Edge Of Town
05 Heartbreak Hotel
06 Factory
07 The Promised Land
08 Prove It All Night
09 Racing In The Street
10 Thunder Road
11 Jungleland
12 The Ties That Bind
13 Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town
14 Fire
15 Candy's Room
16 Because The Night
17 It's So Hard To Be A Saint In The City
18 Point Blank
19 Mona > She's The One
20 Backstreets
21 Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
22 Born To Run
23 Detroit Medley > Lucille (Recorder 2)
24 Quarter To Three

Known Faults:
-Show Intro: 19 seconds of audience and tune-ups patched
-Jungleland: patches of 7 seconds and 1 second
-The Ties That Bind: patches of 30 seconds (intro), 2 seconds, 1 second, 24  
         seconds, 1 second, 1 second and 4 seconds (1 minute 3 seconds total)
-Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town: patches of 1 second, 3 seconds, 1 second, 18 
         seconds, 2 seconds as well as 5 seamless splices (25 seconds total)
-Fire: patches of 15 seconds (intro), 45 seconds, 35 seconds as well as 3 
         seamless spices (1 minute 35 seconds total)
-Point Blank: patches of 1 second, 9 seconds, 1 second, 1 second, 2 minutes 7   
         seconds as well as 1 seamless splice (2 minutes 19 seconds total)
-She's The One: patch of 51 seconds
-Backstreets: patch of 7 seconds
-Rosalita: patch of 1 second
-Detroit Medley > Lucille: recorder 2
-Quarter To Three: send slightly cut

The 1978 show in Norman, Oklahoma is a show I've had my eye on to upgrade for a long time. 

It's a show with a lot going for it to send it into the upper levels of Darkness shows. The discovery of a previously unknown, undocumented second recording source propelled this one forward for release on today's 39th anniversary.

The show itself is flat out awesome, early on Bruce pulls out "Heartbreak Hotel" followed by a beautiful version of "Factory". We also get, according to Brucebase, the longest "Prove It All Night" intro of the tour clocking in at close to six minutes long, the download is worth that alone. The show only gets better and better as it goes, as had been the norm for a few weeks "The Ties That Bind" kicks off an energetic second
set and though somewhat standard for the latter half of the Darkness tour how can one argue against a set that includes "Candy's Room", "Because The Night", "It's So Hard To Be A Saint In The City" and "Point Blank" back to back to back to back as not being one of the great song strings of Bruce's career.

The circulating version is an incredibly frustrating listen due to the large amounts of cuts in eight songs (as many as 5 to 7 cuts per song in 3 songs). 
It is also missing "Detroit Medley" in it's entirety, the discovery of a second source which includes "Detroit Medley" makes this show even more interesting. 
I'm always intrigued to hear a missing song after 39 years and what a version it is. Brucebase lists the "Detroit Medley" in Carbondale two nights later as containing the one and only inclusion of "Lucille" as part of "Detroit Medley".
We now know that it was also included two nights earlier in Norman making this show the first of two times "Lucille" was included. Interestingly, there appears to also have been a power failure during "Detroit Medley", as Bruce starts to sing "Good Golly, Miss Molly" everything goes quiet. A minute and a half later Bruce comments "ok, let's rock it..." picking up where they left off, a fascinating snapshot.

As mentioned, the surprising discovery of a previously undocumented second source is what propelled this one forward, the Recorder 1 core source is one of 4 versions I've had of this show on tape, the circulating version is a bit flat and sounds to have had some hiss removal applied. Every version I've had on tape of this show does contain a liberal amount of hiss but I believe that this, the best of the four, has a tolerable level with a good spectral frequency.

The Recorder 1 version of this show has 27 cuts in 9 songs, I was able to patch 26 of those cuts with Recorder 2, 9 of those patches were 1 second or less.

Unfortunately, the recorder 2 source is lesser quality, captured farther away from the stage, however, it is fortunate is exists at all and is more complete.

With the addition of "Detroit Medley", the show is now 100% complete with the exception of the last minute or so of "Quarter To Three" missing (no patch available). Channels are also aligned and it now runs at the correct pitch.

Samples provided and artwork included...

I hope you'll join me for a journey back 39 years ago tonight and "let's rock it".

mjk5510