Fri 8/9 @ 9PM
On August 9, 1978, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band played a now-legendary show at the old Agora on East 24th Street (now an exciting parking lot!) to celebrate WMMS’s 10th anniversary. It was a real treat for those lucky enough to get tickets, since by then Springsteen was headlining arenas, not playing 1,000 capacity clubs.
They say it was an amazing show. I wouldn’t know. I was one of those not lucky enough to get in, and I took an assignment from the Plain Dealer to review Crosby, Stills and Nash at the now-demolished Richfield Coliseum that same night, since the PD’s regular rock writer Jane Scott was of course covering the Springsteen show. I heard a little of the live broadcast on my car radio in the Coliseum parking lot.
Now people who missed the show — or people who weren’t even born yet — can live a little of that magic with local Springsteen tribute band Swamps of Jersey. SoJ features a cast of illustrious musicians all too young to have been there. They mostly broke out of Cleveland’s ’90s folk-rock and roots-rock scenes — including Howard Micenmacher (Al’s Fast Freight), Ann Marie Kovach (Anna Nausea), Chris DeHaas (Odd Girl Out), and Kevin McCarthy (Cletus Black).
They’ll be performing the entire show — opening with “Summertime Blues” and closing with “Twist and Shout” at Wilbert’s exactly 35 years later.
Yes, Bruce did play some original tunes in between those two covers. The show featured a mix of songs from the four albums he had out at that time, heavy on selections from his 1975 breakout Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, which had come out only two months earlier.
We don’t know if the show will start at exactly the same time the Agora concert did 35 years ago , so we’re going with Wilbert’s usual kickoff time of 9pm.
Swamps of Jersey will also play Wilbert’s Saturday August 10, with a show featuring a mix of Springsteen material.
http://www.swampsofjersey.com/