The Springsteen camp has been on a roll during the past few weeks, heavily promoting The Promise box set through various media in Europe and the States. And why shouldn't they? After all, this IS the box sets of all box sets. It rightly deserves all the attention it can get. This Monday, Bruce sat in for two hours with Dave Marsh on Sirius' E Street Radio, answering questions about Darkness from twenty lucky fans (who submitted the most insightful questions out of 3000 for the contest). One of the best things that came out of this conversation was that E Street Radio was the reason why Bruce was compelled to put together the compilation of outtakes and unreleased songs for the The Promise double-CD. (Bruce previously gave the green light to allow fans to send in bootlegged recordings of his songs).
Then, there was Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, the only TV appearance by Bruce to promote the release, in which he was the only guest. During the opening skit, Jimmy posed as Neil Young circa early 70's (total dead ringer!) and did a parody of Willow Smith's Whip My Hair on acoustic. Halfway through, Bruce appeared with his telecaster -- dressed in Born To Run era clothing! That's right, complete with the shades and the (fake) beard and the leather jacket and the coonskin cap, and the hair (yes, it's a wig). Totally fucking hilarious. Hopefully this will be a stepping stone for him in hosting a future SNL episode!
But of course, the highlight of the show was the performances. Bruce brought in Stevie and Roy, and they jammed with the house band, The Roots. Call it the Roots Street Band. They fucking killed (the huge tuba was a nice addition too). They did a badass version of Because The Night, followed by the new Save My Love, which turned out to be a great song live. Rush down to Jimmy Fallon's site to watch all the clips, including the interview segments.
As I'm typing this, my box set is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, thanks to UPS. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about this. I've been losing sleep the past few nights just thinking about it. I'll be breaking up my review into different parts, so watch out for it in the coming week. This is, without a doubt, the most important music release in my life.
