Springsteen Breaks Out in 1975

In August 1975, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were booked to play ten shows at the tiny New York club the Bottom Line, near Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. Springsteen was weeks away from releasing his third album, Born to Run, and his label, Columbia, invited more than 1,000 industry insiders to see what fans of the E Street Band's live shows had long known. As guitarist Steven Van Zandt says, "Blowing minds was routine for us. We had been doing it for ten years, and Bruce used all ten years of it in those shows."

The band played two shows a night during the course of five nights, and the career-defining gigs were breathtaking in their intensity, each its own raucous, life-affirming celebration.

"It was our coming-out party," Springsteen says. "And some sort of transformation occurred over those five nights. We walked out of that place in a different place."

From the introductory notes of "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out" (usually the show opener), Springsteen destroyed the room like a rampaging bull. "The raw power was unbelievable," says Stanley Snadowsky, one of the Bottom Line's owners. "He climbed on the building's poles, the piano, the tables. He was so exposed in such a reckless way, everyone felt it."

"The energy of the band forced me out on those tables," says Springsteen. "Playing a little place like that, and it starts boiling. We were so set up for that kind of playing. We had so much experience at it."

Springsteen and the E Streeters roared through two-hour performances, varying the set list for the most part but always making sure to include the show's emotional centerpiece: a gripping version of "Thunder Road," performed as a solo by Springsteen at a piano. "The band hadn't learned to play that song real well," says Springsteen. "That's the only reason I did it solo."

Despite the crowd's adulation, Springsteen still wasn't convinced that he had delivered. "After one of the sets, Peter Wolf came in the dressing room," remembers Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau. "Bruce was a little uncertain about the quality of the set he had just done, and Wolf physically jumped on top of him and started yelling at him how great the whole thing had been. It was hilarious -- especially because Bruce barely knew Peter at the time."

And Springsteen's reward for a job well done? Food poisoning. "After the last show, someone brought in a plate of fried chicken and we scarfed it down," he says. "It must have been bad, because it was a rough ride back to New Jersey. It was one of the great band-sickness stories of all time."