(no subject)
The zip file, which includes all the songs and the cover art/tray card.
I think I got all the dates right. Pretty sure I got all the dates right. Grabbed most of these songs either from the Backstreets individual songs forum, or from boots I'd downloaded from the bootleg forum. Only one song's from an album.
Nebraska - Live in Lincoln, Nebraska! I love how he's all, "I got interested in an incident that happened up here in the late 50s," and the crowd is like, "YEAH" because the incident was a string of murders that got turned into the story in Badlands (also, everyone knows how hot Martin Sheen was in that movie, right? Because he totally was, in his big-headed, one-arm-shorter-than-the-other, playing-a-sociopath way). It starts out fine enough, but later in the song, his voice takes on this really ethereal quality. Very rough and breaky.
Atlantic City - The Live in NYC version of this is a better sounding production, but there's something about the way his voice goes at the end that gets me on this one. It's kind of a messy recording, so sorry about that.
Mansion On the Hill - This is one of those songs where his voice has that twangy, folksy sound to it, which of course works for pretty much all the Nebraska songs. This was from the Tom Joad tour (aka the STFU tour), so it's just him, a guitar, and a harmonica. I know some fans want to hear an electric Nebraska, but how can this be an electric song? Even the version from the reunion tour was electric country, not electric rock. It doesn't lend itself to a big rock production (or even a small rock production).
Johnny 99 - Why they didn't include some version of this song, like as an extra or something, on the Sessions DVD, is beyond me. I fucking LOVE the treatments his older songs got on this tour, and Johnny 99 got one of the best. Really cool syncopatic arrangement, I can't even describe it. Just download this.
Highway Patrolman - So this is a song that got turned into a movie that got used for a video for the song, then. It was really hard for me to find a live version that improved on the album version, which is odd for Springsteen - his live stuff is almost always approx. 910291281829 times better than his studio stuff - but I like this well enough. The vocals are not perfect, which is really good for this song, since you don't expect the character whose story is being told to sing very well.
State Trooper - This is the one where the folks from Arcade Fire joined the ESB on stage for this song, from the current Magic tour. And that's the only reason I chose it. It was really good! And this is a better version than what you hear on the pit video that's up on Youtube and everywhere else.
Used Cars - I basically chose this version for the introduction. Song's pretty sad, intro is ridiculously cute. It cracks me up that he drives used cars now, though.
Open All Night - Yeah I totally cheated on this one. It's from the Live In Dublin CD. I know there are tons of other great Open All Night versions out there, with all sorts of weird stories and intros and arrangements, but this is absolutely my favorite, simply because of what that tour did to his songs (I really love Blinded by the Light with the SSB, too). Open All Night is a stellar rambling party song when it's at its worst, and this is not its worst. It's this crazy big band swing production, and I love it. If this does not make you get up and go, your get up and go has clearly got up and gone.
My Father's House - Possibly the most heartbreaking version of this song that I've ever heard. I mean, it's a heartbreaking song to begin with, but something about this version makes me stop whatever I'm doing while I'm listening to it, and just sit up and pay attention. It's so utterly lonely.
Reason to Believe - From the current Magic tour. You can hear some guy in the audience saying something like, "This is fucking rock and roll," and as cheesy as Audience Guy is, he's also right. It's just a classic, rock and blues arrangement that draws inspiration from basically every blues musician ever. Really fun sound for a cynical song.
Reason to Believe (extra) - I had to include this, because it's like the polar opposite of the version they're doing on the Magic tour. It's from the Devils & Dust tour, and it's so creepy and spare, and you can't always tell what he's saying because he's singing (shouting?) into a bullet mic, which is causing this bizarre distortion to his voice. You may not like it, but you should hear it anyway.