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Introduction
In every compilation I’ve made thus far, I make a mention to EV2s “The Turnpike is Closed, Nobody Goes Home” a compilation made in 2009. That is important since listening to it in early 2020 gave me the initial idea for making compilations at all. Originally, I was just going to update Turnpike with different versions of songs, usually just better versions that were played or even released after the compilation came out. This idea fizzled out quite quick as I had more ideas, and I eventually got to the point where it would have been easier to make my own. That became “Two Lanes, Two Hearts”, my first Springsteen bootleg compilation. Making it was essentially a crash course in audio mixing, how to fade tracks together seamlessly (or as close as I could get). Along with lessons in designing for print, as I usually just designed stuff for computer screens only.
While I was working on TLTH, I became aware of the Boston Music Hall shows from 1977 and their legendary status. I thought of how cool it’d be to make a compilation album of the 4 nights. This became “Nights at the Boston Music Hall”, I made and released it pretty quickly. The mixing was easy since the tapes were all from the same source.
After redoing the art a few times, and an entire remix from scratch, TLTH was done around May 2020. There are some things I wish I’d have done different, mainly in concerns to setlist and show choice, but I was happy enough with it to where I was done fiddling with it. Both of them were released, and I even burned some CDs to make a physical release. One of which was sent to a family friend who was the one who got me into Bruce.
With TLTH and Nights done, I was frankly tired of audio mixing. So, I didn’t do any all summer and into the beginning of Fall. Fall 2020 was my first semester of fully online school thanks to COVID. So, I needed something to listen to, so I started to listen to more Bruce bootlegs. I initially drifted towards 1980 shows, since 2020 was the 40th anniversary of the River tour. Some 1984 shows also made their way into my listening rotation. An idea started forming for another compilation, it started as just compiling the best of 1984. But I desired some other songs like ‘I Wanna Marry You’, ‘Wreck on the Highway’, and others that weren’t played much after the River tour. So, I went back to the River tour for these songs.
That compilation ended up becoming ‘And the Leaves Came Tumbling Down — Fall 1980/1984”. It took me the least amount of time to make, only taking 3 days from starting of mixing to release. I wanted to do this so the compilation wasn’t ruined for me. TLTH took a lot of time to get right, and a side effect of that is that I can no longer listen to it. As I know where the fades are, and it takes me out of it. So, a quicker mix was necessary to my long-term enjoyment of it, plus a lack of desire to spend forever on a new compilation.
My next compilation was shortly after that. Nassau Nights, a compilation of the 3 nights at Nassau in December 1980. Made in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of those shows. This took about a month, mainly due to Finals taking up most of December. This compilation is now (as of December 2021) basically banned from sharing on most sites since every Nassau show has now been officially released. As if a show has been released officially, many sites and trackers will refuse to allow anyone to upload that show, even an audience tape bootleg.
Somewhere…in the swamps of Jersey
So, by this point, it’s the end of 2020, And it’s now 2021. Once again, an idea starts forming for a compilation. But this time, I wanted to make my ultimate compilation, one that remedied the issues I had with my past compilations. Which were: the mixing taking too long and ruining future listens, as well as disappointment at not including certain songs, or finding new shows that opened me up to new versions of songs.
By this point, my knowledge of live Bruce had expanded pretty widely. So I set out to make a new compilation, one where I’d be able to enjoy listening to it, and one where I’d include every song I wanted to.
This started out as just a list of songs, no rhyme or reason, just songs I wanted to use. Both ones I used on previous compilations, and new ones that I either didn’t know about, or didn’t use the last times around. This list grew pretty rapidly, total count was about 60 or so songs. It did require some trimming and organizing, however. I eventually found a name for this monster of a project: “Somewhere Deep into the Heart of the Crowd”.
Over the next few months, I worked on and off on this compilation. Most of this time was simply organizing the setlist into something workable, something I could actually mix. It was probably around June when I realized I might have gotten a little in over my own head. Up to this point I was just working on my own, arranging the setlist based on what felt right, and more importantly, what felt like something Bruce would actually play in concert. I didn’t want it to feel “off”, for lack of a better term.
At this point it had ballooned to about 65 songs, I was originally planning to make it a digital only compilation, since the format of 80min CDs was a bit restrictive to my previous compilations. But without the disc format, it kinda had no real structure and instead it was just about 6 hours of music with no clean breaks.
Eventually, I announced the project in its current state to the r/brucespringsteen discord server, of which I’ve been a member for a year or two now. The people there are very knowledgeable on Bruce and an absolute delight to talk to. And I greatly credit them with helping me sort through this mess of a compilation and make something actually “releasable”.
The biggest thing the server helped with was the format. The compilation being 60 songs with no breaks would have been a bit much. I’m bring up one of the mods here, ragamuffingunner, as he brought up the idea of the compilation being broken up into multiple sets, as well as mentioning Live 75–85 and how its 3 separate discs makes for easy listening. This goes a long way to making repeated listening much less daunting than 60 songs over 6 hours. Once the compilation was broken up, the rest of it came very easy. The smaller sets would make it easier to mix, only being about hour and a half chunk at a time. I could mix them quickly and release them as I finish each chunk, possibly encouraging me further. Plus, the sequencing would be much easier as it could be focused to that chunk and not affect anything around it. So, I wouldn’t have to worry about difficult thematic transitions. At one point I had “Working on the Highway” going into “Because the Night”, so clearly that wasn’t going to work. Having the clean breaks would ultimately make a better product in the end.
Actually making the damn thing
So, by this point, we’re at early June 2021 (5 months after starting). The setlist is finally done, and I can start mixing the damn thing. I stuck with quick mixing as to get them done quick and so I could enjoy them. The process for each volume went as follows: gather all the source tracks, mix them together via crossfades, slice it up into tracks, export, give it a quick listen, go back and fix problematic mixes, reexport and listen, upload and release when done.
Another thing I tried to stick with was staying away from shows that have been officially released, this was usually accomplished by going as far from the officials as possible and picking shows that had little chance of being recorded at all. This was done to make sure the comp wouldn’t be nuked off sites for having bootlegs of official tracks, as well as an additional challenge. I wanted to show that for every Passaic or Winterland, there was something equally good in Paramount or Seattle 78.
The compilation was mixed and released from June 2021 — August 2021. The dates are as follows:
- Volume 1: June 24th
- Volume 2: July 9th
- Volume 3: July 18th
- Volume 4: August 9th
- Volume 5: August 12th
- Volume 6: August 14th
The progress sped up towards the end as I wanted to get this compilation done before school started back up in the Fall. So around 2 months overall to mix and release every part. I was originally going to go over each volume and explain some of my song choices, but this is getting long enough as is, so I’ll put those in a separate document or booklet. Thanks for reading and enjoy!
Lilbud (December 2021)