Bruce Springsteen
Winterland Ballroom
December 15th, 1978

Winterland Ballroom was a concert venue in San Francisco, run by the legendary promoter Bill Graham. It was constructed in 1928 as an ice skating rink. Starting in 1966, Graham began putting shows on at Winterland, usually for acts who's audiences were too big for The Fillmore Auditorium. Following the closings of Fillmores East and West in 1971, Graham began hosting regular shows at Winterland. Some of the best acts of the time period played there, among them:

The Rolling Stones
The Who
Queen
Led Zeppelin
The Sex Pistols
Grateful Dead
Yes
The Allman Brothers Band
The Band
Pink Floyd
Genesis
Jethro Tull
Deep Purple
CSNY
Bob Dylan
among many others

Virtually every major rock band of the time played at Winterland. Unfortunately, due to the changing landscape of the concert industry, Bill Graham made the difficult decision to close Winterland in 1978. Leading up to the final concert on New Year's Eve 1978 (which included The New Riders of the Purple Sage, The Blues Brothers and the Grateful Dead), a legendary concert in its own right, Graham filled the Winterland schedule with one powerhouse performer after another. On December 15th and 16th, Bruce Springsteen was booked to perform.
At this point in his career, Springsteen was a major star on the East Coast of the United States. While certainly well known across the nation, his notoriety out West significantly lagged behind his popularity in the area surrounding his home base of New Jersey. The concert performed on December 15th was to change all that. It was a blowout performance considered by many fans to arguably be his best ever. In addition, it was broadcast on the radio over a wide area, including the major markets of Seattle, Portland, Sacramento and the Bay Area.
I won't bore you with a blow by blow account of each song. What I will do though, is tell you that this concert is easily one of the greatest things I've ever heard. The level of raw energy, passion and emotion is draining to the listener. You can practically feel the sweat coming through the speakers. Even the quiet parts are intense. There are moments when his guitar cuts through the cacophony like a razor blade. There are other moments when he is telling a story, and you could hear a pin drop. It's like you are alone in a room, and he is a long lost friend. I'm not ashamed to admit that I have almost been moved to tears when listening to this show.

Set List:

Bill Graham Intro
Badlands
Streets of fire
Spirit in the night
Darkness on the edge of town
Factory
The promised land
Prove it all night
Racing in the street
Thunder road
Jungleland
The ties that bind
Santa Claus is comin' to town
The fever
Fire
Candy's room
Because the night
Point blank
Mona
She's the one
Backstreets
Rosalita (Come out tonight)

Encore:

Born to run
Detroit Medley
10th avenue freeze-out
Raise your hand
Quarter to three

Part 1: http://www.mediafire.com/?nt88im1id3qtp84
Part 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?ior161zajb5ij10
Part 3: http://www.mediafire.com/?tc6praxl173evpb

I see this review turned out to be a smashing success.

Did anyone download it?

No

excellent contribution to the thread

You posed a question with a blatantly obvious answer. Nobody downloaded it because nobody cares.

Who peed in your cheerios this morning?

Not you, because you were too busy pissing out stupid posts.

I really hope your avatar is a picture of you.

That's a bit weird of you to say.