1973-01-31 Max's Kansas City, New York City, NY (Early)

Scheduled: ??:?? Local Start Time ??:?? / End Time ??:??

Info & Setlist | Venue

First of two shows, double billing, with Springsteen and band opening for headliner Biff Rose. This was the opening of a six-night (12-show) residency at the club. As undercard Bruce's performances would have been limited to about 60 minutes per show. This is the earliest known performance of "Spirit In The Night". The show featured an introduction by Max's owner Mickey Ruskin. To start the show Bruce plays two solo numbers before bringing out the band. Recordings from this show are often misidentified as coming from solo Springsteen shows at Max's Kansas City in mid-1972. The listed setlist is culled from circulating soundboard recordings of both shows from this night. The early show is believed to be complete.

This is the recording of "Bishop Danced" that ended up on the official Tracks box set, although the liner notes mistakenly list the broadcast date as the recording date. Mike Appel also utilized these recordings of "Bishop Danced" and "Thundercrack" for copyright/publishing purposes. In doing so the long, 11:30 recording of "Thundercrack" was professionally edited to a slicker, more focused 6:50 running time. The song is cut in a couple of places, with the major edit completely eliminating the middle 'comedy break' routine. It is this edited version that was distributed (on tape or acetate) to select industry people during the period.

D.I.R. Broadcasting Corp was on hand to gather performance recordings of Bruce for use on its upcoming new syndicated radio program called "The King Biscuit Flower Hour." The only song from this performance that made it on air was "Bishop Danced". "Bishop Danced" would be included in future KBFH shows, and in 1984, "Mary Queen Of Arkansas" and "Spirit In The Night" as recorded from this performance featured in a 500th Broadcast celebration for the program. DIR was the company responsible for the broadcast of 1988's "Hello World" Stockholm recording, and you can hear this version of "Spirit in the Night" as part of the pre-show broadcast.
^{Note: D.I.R. Broadcasting Corp/King Biscuit Flower Hour still retains a master tape of the entire January 31 show in its archives. The company has repeatedly sought (and been declined) permission to commercially release what they have as part of its ongoing archive CD reissue series.}

The entire performance from the early show can be found on the CD boot 'Live At Max's Kansas City' ^{(Swingin' Pig)}. The edited version of "Thundercrack" was one of the earliest booted Springsteen recordings and can be found on the mid-70s LP boot 'Fire On The Fingertips' ^(Unknown). Enhanced sound specimens of this long-circulating edited version of "Thundercrack" can be found in more recent times on CD boots 'Forgotten Songs', 'The Unsurpassed Springsteen Vol 2 Max's Kansas City 1972-1973' and 'Deep Down In The Vaults' (which falsely credits the performance as January 5, 1974 at Joe's Place). The 2008 CD 'Max's Kansas City Night' ^{(Crystal Cat)} has all the mentioned songs plus "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" from June 6, 1973 at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. One final point of interest, a 1972 studio demo of "Vibes Man" with audience applause crudely dubbed onto it by a 1970s bootlegger often circulates identified as from this date. There is no genuine live performance of "Vibes Man" known. The recording of "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" (available on the boot CD 'Deep Down In The Vaults') is often claimed to be from one of the Max's Kansas City shows, but is actually from June 6, 1973 at Philadelphia's Spectrum arena. Recently, the full show has been made available on Wolfgang's Vault, in much clearer quality than previously known. There are no additional tracks however.

Intro to "Mary Queen of Arkansas"
”I just had a harrowing experience comin’ up here, I stepped in Pepsi Cola….Now the bottom of my sneakers , they’re stickin’ to the rug….That ends the comedy part of the show (chuckles)…..”

Intro to "Bishop Danced"
” This next song is a …a nonsense…a kind of a nonsense song….It’s…I’ll give you a quick rundown …It’s about a bishop and his wife and this violin player in West Virginia….It’s about how a daughter lost her mother to mathematics out on a business trip in Detroit ….Ah, it’s about ah…..It has a Top 40 hook part (crowd laughs)….that if we knew the words, everybody could sing to it….Ah, about pancakes and this guy named Muskrat….who lives in Richmond, Virginia…who I met when I was playin’ down there…he plays saxophone….Ah, it’s about-ah …James Garner when he was very popular years ago…in his part-Brit-Bert (?) ‘Maverick’-tv-shows…And it was a well-known Hollywood secret that he had an affair with a mad woman with one eye (crowd laughs)….Uh….Uh….It’s about uh….Oh, it’s about this little boy who told his father that the Indians are still in the woods, only nobody sees ‘em…And uh….It’s about sexual pathos of elderly choirboys in Butte, Montana…(?)…You know, it’s…. We’re really…the band, we go around all these places…and like our big thrill is that we copy accents and we go like….where were we last week ? Chicago….Chicago and that’s nutty….It’s like Chicago’s like a big….one big hit town….and…..it was nice, though….”

Intro to "Circus Song"
(Bruce plays a riff from Heat Wave by Martha and the Vandellas) ”Watchout ! Is the brass section alright ? Let me hear you !” (the lone sound of Garry Tallent’s tuba). ”Good….Can you give me so highs on this guitar or turn it down or something?….Is the (?) mike on?…This is a song about ah carnivals…that come around to your part….uh….grammar schools…when you’re pretty much any age and set up in a parking lot….Let’s go….”

Intro to "Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?"
”This is a song about New York City and I wanna dedicate it to uh…uh..buses….”

Intro to "Thundercrack"
”This is a song about my girlfriend who lives in New Jersey….And is 21” (somebody in the band yells ”16”).
(….) Ok, kids, we got a new dance…It’s called ‘The Limp’….You don’t have to stand up or nothing (?)….all you gotta do is go limp…you can do it with your pimp…you can do it on a plimp…you can do it with a chimp…..This is the really important part of the number where the band is…..”

^{Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi.}

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Bruce Springsteen, Biff Rose: Max's Kansas City, New York NY

EVERYBODY GRUMBLES about Max's for some reason, but most of us keep climbing through the dark to the top of the stairs once or twice a week anyway. Last week's attractions were Bruce Springsteen, who is being pegged by many as "the new Dylan" (as if there could really be one), and Biff Rose, the bemused observer of foibles great and small who, despite the ups and downs of his career, has never claimed to be anyone but himself.

Springsteen and the tight four-piece group who backed him on his recent debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park (Columbia), were opening the show. Much of the album seems to stumble under the weight of its own supposed significance and obscures the fact that he has a strong innate feel for singing hard rock. But on-stage he puts all of himself on the line and the images that drop so leadenly off the album cover take wing, pushed by some lively jabs from Clarence Clemons's tenor sax. His best numbers were 'Spirit in the Night', an up-tempo shouter strongly resembling Norman Greenbaum's 'Spirit in the Sky', peopled with gypsy angels and soul fairy bands, that recalled Van Morrison and The Band's less self-conscious work, and a new piece titled (I think) 'She Moves Up, She Moves Back'. If he doesn't get lost under the attendant hype, Springsteen might even do something really amazing one of these days. After all, even Dylan had to forge his musical persona over a period of years, confounding audiences all along the way.

Biff Rose, in contrast, was a disappointment, acting as nervous as if he'd never been on a stage before. He started well with 'Shell of a Man', and 'MacDonald's Hamburgers' (the original theme was written and sung by the divine Miss M's pianist, Barry Manilow, and even today Jim Dawson urges his audiences to say "Big Mac" instead of "far out") from his recent UA album Uncle Jesus Aunty Christ, but then he trailed off into a rambling rap that touched on his music ("I'm glad I'm getting a response from you here, 'cause this is canned shit I'm doing"), the rise and fall of certain hip words like "outrageous" and "mellow," and Carly Simon. When he asked if anyone in the house had heard of jazz pianist McCoy Tyner, three of us applauded. The highlight of his set was a spontaneous exchange of insults with some stoned-out patrons off to the side. "Just 'cause you took all that Valium doesn't mean you have to talk out loud," he responded to a girl who shouted, alternately, "Bobby!" and "rock 'n' roll!" He noodled away on a nearby electric piano, singing snatches of 'Molly' (his big hit of a few years ago), 'Garbage', and 'You're So Vain' until his time was up, and left to uncertain applause. We love ya anyway, Biff, but if you really want to be Bill Cosby, why don't you just come out and say so?

^{By Dan Nooger via The Village Voice, February 8, 1973.}

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