Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
CNE Grandstand
Toronto, ON
July 24, 1984

mackeck master via JEMS

Recording Gear: Aiwa portable cassette recorder with built-in mic

2015 Transfer: BASF Ferrochrom III master cassettes > Nakamichi CR-7A (azimuth-adjusted) > Sound Devices USBPre2 (24/96 Audacity 2.0 capture) > iZotope RX 4 and Ozone 5 > iZotope MBIT+ convert to 16/44.1 .wav > Peak Pro XT 
(edit / index) > xACT 2.21 > FLAC

01 Badlands (MISSING)
02 Prove It All Night
03 Out in the Street
04 Atlantic City
05 Open All Night
06 Used Cars
07 Trapped
08 Glory Days
09 The Promised Land
10 Nebraska
11 The River
12 Born in the U.S.A.
13 Thunder Road
14 Cadillac Ranch
15 Hungry Heart
16 Dancing in the Dark
17 Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
18 No Surrender
19 Because the Night
20 I'm On Fire
21 Pink Cadillac
22 Bobby Jean
23 Racing in the Street
24 Rosalita
25 Jungleland
26 Born to Run
27 Street Fighting Man
28 Detroit Medley

Known faults:
-Badlands: Missing
-Prove It All Night: Cuts In

JEMS is pleased to present the second of three previously uncirculated master recordings of Springsteen’s July 1984 stand in Toronto. These concerts featured the band playing outdoors in a modified configuration of Exhibition Stadium (home of the Blue Jays prior to SkyDome/Rogers Centre) that (according to press accounts) held 23,000 per night.

d.j.mackeck first reached out in 2013 to report that his dad had recorded several Bruce shows between 1978 and 1985 in their hometown of Toronto, as well as cities within spitting distance like Detroit and Buffalo. These shows come from the second batch of masters he was kind enough to ship to JEMS for fresh transfers.

The Toronto shows were recorded on a small portable Aiwa recorder with built-in mic, and, while the recording has some quality inconsistencies, rough patches, lots of clapping and is a bit distant, once you tune in it becomes listenable with several nice moments. Like the first night, this recording did require more aggressive mastering than what JEMS typically applies, but the tradeoff felt right as the tape is far more musical now. Samples provided.

As for the set list, it is another night of experimentation with the running order, as the show opens with "Badlands" (not captured here, as presumably our intrepid taper was running late) into "Prove It All Night," and "Born in the U.S.A." gets paired with "Thunder Road to close the first set. The Nebraska material also changes up from the first night with performances of the title track, "Open All Night" and "Used Cars." It's also the tour premiere for "Trapped." In the second set, "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out" make an offbeat appearance right after "Dancing," while "Racing" replaces "Backstreets." While not a fantastic tape, 1984-07-24 is a strong show and other than missing the opening song is more complete with less cuts than the currently circulating source.

Big big thanks to d.j. mackeck and his dad for loaning JEMS their masters and recording the show in the first place. Thanks also to mjk5510 for once again supervising our post-production efforts and cleaning up the little stuff.

We will attempt to get all three Toronto shows out in relatively quick succession. Collect ‘em all!

BK for JEMS