Señorita, Come Sit By My Fire…
Watching Bruce sing “Rosalita” tonight on Palladia‘s airing of Hard Rock Calling 2009 prompted me to track down this video ASAP and post on the blog. If you know anything about the Boss, you know that this 1978 version of Rosie live in Phoenix is one of the quintessential live video documents of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.
It took place July 8th, 1978 at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Arizona. It was the main arena in town at the time. The Phoenix Suns played there. Nowadays, it’s brought back into service during the Arizona State Fair every October. I’ve seen Bob Dylan and Steve Miller in that old arena (not together, mind you).
According to Brucebase, the most reliable source for every Bruce Springsteen performance known to man (until ’08), this was the night after the legendary July 7th club show at the Roxy in L.A. (a show that I still have available for you fine folks to listen to). It’s the middle of a hot summer in the desert, Bruce is still flying high after one of the most exhilarating shows of this career, and let’s just say the atmosphere is electric.
It gets no better.
7 Comments
Puri
Wow!!!!
Bill C
That is way cool. I saw this tour in Jacksonville, FL. I had actually seen Bruce several times prior, but this was his first tour as a bona fide star. The show was electric. I was drenched in sweat after 4 hours plus. And Rosailita was the highlight of the show. Thanks for posting this. Brings back great memories. We were so much older then, we’re younger than that now. I am guessing Pete wasn’t even born yet. 🙂
I will have to check whether I have the Roxy show.
Pete
Now come on Bill, I had just turned the hearty old age of 8 when this took place! Was the JAX / Darkness show your first Bruce show?
Bill C
Third if memory serves. First was a small venue in Miami with about 500 people there pre Born to Run. second was the Born to Run tour in Miami. There might have been one in between but that was a long time ago and my memory is not so good. The Born to Run show cemented it for me. I was hooked. This show just put me over the edge.
Dave Lifton
It was also two days before the Agora show, or as I call it, “The Night Rock Achieved Perfection.”
Pete
I had my dates messed up. The PHX show was actually the night after the Roxy show. So the Agora show was a month later. Quite a run of legendary shows. Best year for live Bruce, in my opinion.
slider
With the much-anticipated release of a commemorative box set for Darkness on the Edge of Town slated for this Christmas, Bruce Springsteen’s classic record is getting renewed attention in the music world. Details on the project are scarce; however, in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Steven Van Zandt mentioned that about 10 unreleased songs will be included in the box set. Fans are surely hungry for any and all material they can get from the 1978 recording sessions and subsequent tour. For our own preview of what’s to come, we contacted Dick Wingate, who was intimately involved in the launch and marketing of the album and tour. He offers an insider’s view of what the Darkness era meant to Bruce and the band, while painting an often-humorous behind-the-scenes account of some of the tour’s highlights…check out the book The Light in Darkness, which one fan said, “… would also make a great companion piece to the much anticipated commemorative Darkness box set…”