Randy Bachman and Neil Young had a conversation a few years back. Neil said something to the effect of, that he hated when artists put the same material out over and over and over again, and called it a new album.
Bruce Springsteen had a massive hit with Born to Run… and the market (and record label) were ripe for a more pop sounding album from him…. He follows it up with the bare bones acoustic album Nebraska he recorded in his living room. Epic!
Born to Run wasn't a massive hit when it was released. It's six times Platinum in sales NOW, but it was no more than a Gold record in 1975. On the supporting tour, he didn't play any venues with more than 2,000 seats.
Bruce was involved in a lawsuit with his former manager Mike Appel following
BTR, and was not allowed to record any new music while the matter was still in court. His major source of income in 1976 and early 1977 was from live gigs, and without a new record to promote, he was still playing in theaters, rather than arenas.
His acoustic album
Nebraska was released more than seven years after
Born to Run, with the single disk
Darkness on the Edge of Town and the double album
The River in between. The
Darkness tour was the first time Bruce and The E Street Band played in sports arenas, but only in the some of the larger cities on the tour. Opening night of the
Darkness tour was at Shea's in Buffalo, capacity 3,000.
Prove it All Night was the highlight of the
Darkness Tour:
In Montreal, he played at The Forum in November, 1978, but in the 'concert bowl' configuration, where the stage is at about center ice for hockey, instead of at the north end of the rink, and seating behind the stage wasn't sold. Capacity for that show was probably about 8,000, and about 75% of the seats were sold. Many consider the
Darkness tour to have been his peak artistically as a live performer. I agree with that opinion, having seen that November, 1978 show as well as
The River and
Born in the USA tours.
I don't listen to any of his studio albums after
Nebraska, and the last album of his that I bought was
Born in the USA, on cassette tape. I still do enjoy listening to recordings of his live performances from 1974-78. Bruce hadn't declined as a performer on
The River tour, it was more a case that his better live songs had been on the previous two albums, and he couldn't play all of his best while necessarily including much of The River in his set, even in a three hour show. He also played very little guitar on stage on the
The River and
Born in the USA tours. He had played most of the lead parts and solos on previous tours.
"People say we have ten albums that sound exactly the same. That isn't true. We have eleven albums that sound exactly the same" - Angus Young of AC/DC.