Yes, it is the only album you'll ever need, but than again, with over 200 minutes of music, its nearly 5 times longer than the average Springsteen album!

The Live Box Set is an extremely impressive collection of Springsteen, arranged chronologically (with exception of the last track)

The First Track, Thunder Road, is the only one taken from the '75 tour (Born To Run). Its missing its Rock and Roll feel, but stripped to the piano and no guitars or drums, it has a much more intimate feel to it that you can really appreciate.

The Next 8 Tracks are taken from the '78 Tour (Darkness On The Edge Of Town) and interestling enough, only 1 from the album released during that time. Here you'll find many early classics, from Its Hard To Be A Saint In The City, Rosalita and Growin' Up to an previously unreleased "Paradise By The 'C.'" Its also important to note that Bruce covers the song "Fire," a song he wrote, but was never released before, which had become a #1 hit for another group. These are all immaculately recorded, and sound better than their original albums, they are taken from the Roxy, which holds only a few thousand, if even that (some say closer to 1000) so you get that small, intimate feeling

The next several tracks are from the "River Tour" in '80 and '81 and are mostly tracks from his '78 album (Darkness On the Edge Of Town) Including blistering versions of Badlands, Darkness On The Edge Of Town and Candy's Room. Also included here is an electrifying previously unreleased version of "Because The Night" the song Springsteen co-wrote with Patti Smith. Also included is a cover of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" and a very good cover at that. 3 of his songs from his recent album are also included in Cadillac Ranch, You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch) and Independence Day. These tracks are nearly all taken from Arenas.

The rest of this collection (final 5 Tracks of Disc 2 and All of Disc 3) are taken from Bruce's most recent tour (when this came out) and his record-breaking one, the Born In The USA tour. First, we have 3 songs from his Album "Nebraska," which, while they don't have the feel they have on his album, sound much better because of first rate recording equipment. Than, there is a thunderous organ version of Born In The USA, which, upon first listen, doesn't measure up to the Album's version, but the more you listen to it, the better it sounds to you.

The highlights of this tour are a version of Born To Run that blows away the album's version, and it is the definitive version of the song. Great recordings of "The River" and "The Promised Land", along with a great cover of the song "War" which makes the original look poor in comparison. An acoustic version of "No Surrender" and a fanstastic horn version of "Tenth Avenue Freezeout."

Overall, the songs sound much better live than they do in the studio, particularly songs from Darkness On The Edge of Town and The River. Some of the songs from Born In The USA sound exactly the same (Bobby Jean, Working On The Highway, Darlington County) and some a little worse (Cover Me) Some great previously unreleased material (Fire, Because The Night, War, Raise Your Hand, Seeds) also helps. The first disc, as you can see by the picture, is supposed to be from small, intimate settings, holding not much more than 1000 people. The second disc, as seen by its picture, is mostly from Arena shows, and the third disc, is from giant, Stadium concerts.

In all cases, the recordings are immaculately done, and are as clear as possible. Springsteen's music sounds better here than on album, and considering the amount of stuff here, this is essential for anyone even remotely interested in Springsteen. There is a reason this is the highest selling box-set of all time! Even though its missing a few songs that should be on it (Blinded By The Light, Prove It All Night, Out In The Street, I'm Goin Down, Dancing In The Dark, Glory Days) it doesn't suffer much from not having them. Get this album today, you won't regret it, and will listen to it rather than to the studio albums.

When Bruce released this live album back in '86, fans jammed record stores to wait in line to buy this much anticipated release. Bruce released it as a gift to his fans who had been with him since the beginning and were begging for a live release. Bruce made his name a live act and although no live album can ever replace being at a concert, this album comes the closest to actually achieving that feat. Most live albums are a double or maybe triple album affair, Live 1975-1985 was originally a five record set. From the opening track of a solo Bruce on the piano in "Thunder Road" to the closing "Jersey Girl", we are taken on a musical journey through Bruce's career. We are treated to unreleashed gems like "Seeds", "Because The Night" & "Fire" to covers like "Raise Your Hand", "War" & "This Land Is Your Land" to fiery versions of "Rosalita", "Born In The USA" & "Born To Run" to moving epics like "Independence Day", "The River" and "Racing in The Streets". There are too many great live versions of songs to list and there is no let up from beginning to end. Bruce was so popular at the time that altough this was a pricey five-record set, it was first album to debut at number one since 1976. It's common place nowadays, but a rare feat at the time. Bruce is the king of the stage and this album provides recorded proof of that fact.

This was a long awaited box set. It comes as close to a Bruce Springsteen Concert as possible without buying a ticket. The "Boss" takes you down the thundering road of his musical history of this time frame. If you have never seen the "Boss" live then you don't know what your missing.From the hard core Bruce Springsteen listener to the newly discovered fan this set is a MUST HAVE.The pure sound and feeling I get from this historical recording is unsurpassed. Bruce Springsteen's performance from Thunder Road to Jersey Girl will evoke feelings of joy,sadness and pure outright feeling of having you heart dancing in the aisle. Springsteen's cover of "War" and "This Land is Your Land" are the best I have ever heard. Bruce includes songs such as "Beacuse the Night" and others that have never been included in a studio recording before makes this more of a treat. Owning this set is not an option in the life of a Bruce Springsteen Fan's music collection. This is the live set to rival all others. If you don't own all of the Boss' recordings this will make you want more and more!

If you never get to see Bruce Springsteen in concert, at least get this collection! This CD captures much of the energy he has. "Rosalita" is great with the E-Street Band intoduction and he changes the lyrics slightly "...Because the record company Rosie just gave me big bucks!". It features early greats like "4th of July (Sandy)" "It's Hard to Be a Saint.."and "Spirit in the Night". He includes covers like "Raise Your Hand" and "War" and some never before released songs like "Paradise by the C" and "Seeds" (which seems to be about the farming industry). Not to mention songs he wrote for or with others like "Fire" and "Because the Night". There are the hits "Born in the USA", "Born to Run", "My Hometown",the singalong "Hungry Heart", and the classics like "Thunder Road" (which opens this boxset), "Candy's Room", "Backstreets", "Badlands", and "Bobby Jean". The Boss tells stories about his past in "Growing Up" and "The River" ("My mother wanted a writer and my father wanted a lawyer. Well tonight, you're both going to have to settle for rock and roll!"). He does great acoustic versions of "This Land Is Your Land", "No Surrender" (which I prefer over the studio), "Johny 99", and "Reason to Believe". The only song I wish this set had included is "Jungle Land" (which he played at the show last night in Dallas!) The set closes with the lovely "Jersey Girl". Enjoy!

Perhaps never in the history of rock and roll had an album been as hyped before its release. Spring's concerts were raved about by fans, but Spring had always been too insecure to release a live album. Desperate for some big bucks, his manager finally convinced his act that now was the time to strike, and strike they did, with enough pre-sales to make this 5-LP (3-CD) set debut at number one on the charts and keep them in gravy for years.

It started out promisingly enough with a 1975 song on piano. Spring performs, solo, a song that still means something to him, released on LP in 1975. Then the box takes a nosedive, jumping forward a few years. That's right, *one* song from 1975, no songs from 1976 and 1977. Knowledgeable Spring fans knew there was trouble the second they read when the songs were from. Spring and his manager-producer had decided to skip over his best concert years since they didn't have multi-track recordings of them to fiddle with and tweak.

Compounding the mistake, the general rule is that the performances selected are of songs originally released in studio versions years earlier. 1978 performances are of 1975 songs, 1981 performances are of 1978 songs, and so on. Spring has clearly lost the original inspiration he had when writing the material and plays every song as an oldie, covered as nostalgia. Spring's camp actually thought the most important thing was to have the backing group, the notoriously overrated E Street Band, not make as many mistakes (since they'd have played the songs hundreds of times by the recording dates). They didn't care that the performances themselves lacked any hint of vitality, and sounded exactly like they were, tired re-treads.

This box set also lacks any sense of flow, of sensible sequence. Compiled from numerous sources, it does not have any automatic coherence. And the multiple producers can't create any, either, from these lackluster renditions.

The sad thing is that *every* honest Spring fan knows that they've been sold a bill of goods with this set, but many drink the kool-aid all the same. All these 5-star reviews are a joke. It doesn't deserve even one star. If Spring had simply released one of the several 1978 3-hour radio broadcasts of his show, straight as-is, he'd have given fans a record of what he was all about live. What he sold fans instead was a travesty, a miserably failed attempt at tampering with his own music past, making him over as the Born-in-the-USA man.