Music

Springsteen at His Finest

The best live songs from Darkness on the Edge of Town

by Josh Kurp   |   Oct 8, 2010

Springsteen at His Finest

 

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Last night, The Promise aired on HBO. The 90 minute documentary, about Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band making Darkness on the Edge of Town, was just as fascinating and interesting as watching live Springsteen footage from the mid-’70s, when Darkness was released. For most that’d be a diss, but with Springsteen, well, have you ever watched any of the videos? They show a man and his band at the top of their game, ready to play music again after not being able to record anything in the studio for three years (if you watched the documentary, you’d know what we’re talking about).

Below are the best versions of the best songs from Darkness on the Edge of Town, all from 1978:

1. “Badlands” (San Francisco)

2. “The Promised Land” (Landover, MD)

3. “Prove It All Night” (Phoenix)

4. “Darkness on the Edge of Town” (Cleveland)

5. “Candy’s Room” (Passaic, NJ)

(Originally, we were going to have a clever lyric as this post’s title, but we forgot how depressing this album is. “Take a Knife and Cut This Pain from My Heart” doesn’t really work for a list article, does it?)