Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Nassau Coliseum
Uniondale, NY
April 2, 1988
Night 2
CBG Classic Master Video Series Vol.9

video: (CBG) Ricoh R-600 (same spec as Sony CCD-V5) 8mm camcorder (w/ 2X teleconverter lens) master 8mm analog tape; NTSC, 4:3 PAR, 29.97 fps; transferred to harddrive via a firewire using a Sony TRV-330 8mm digital camera w/ Time Base Correction; video capture, editing, and 2-pass VBR encoding done with Sony Vegas Pro 12 at 8.2K max, 6.0K avg, 1K min; authored to DVD in Sony DVD Architect Pro 6.  All video editing, audio synching and DVD authoring by Silver Stallion.
 
audio: JEMS source unaltered synched to the video in LPCM 1536 bit

running time: 125 mins (partial show - see note below)

disk 1 (72 mins)
1. Brilliant Disguise
2. Spare Parts
3. War
4. Born In The U.S.A.
5. Tougher Than The Rest
6. Ain't Got You
7. She's The One
8. You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
9. I'm A Coward
10. I'm On Fire
11. One Step Up
12. Part Man, Part Monkey

disk 2 (73 mins)
1. Walk Like A Man
2. Dancing In The Dark
3. Light Of Day
4. Born To Run
5. Hungry Heart
6. Glory Days
7. Love Me Tender
8. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
9. Detroit Medley
10. Raise Your Hand

disc 3 (49 mins) Missing songs from the beginning of the show: Bonus DVD5 of still shot pictures and the great JEMS audio of the opening 8 songs.
1. Tunnel Of Love
2. Be True
3. Adam Raised A Cain
4. Two Faces
5. All That Heaven Will Allow
6. Seeds
7. Roulette
8. Cover Me

I only have one request, that you don't take these files and post them on other torrent sites. I have many shows to upload. I will upload, let them get seeded by others and after a majority have downloaded the files completely, remove my files so I can seed something new. I prefer to manage my own shows on DIME and The Traders Den. I will upload to other sites when I wish to for select shows. Thanks for honoring my wishes in advance. 

This is “CBG Classic Master Video Series Vol.9”.

This was one of the first shows I did with the brand new Ricoh R-600 8mm camera. I met the NYBG in January of 1988 in my hometown when I went to a bar to see a Kiss cover band. He was filming it for a friend he knew in the band. Turns out, I had a friend in the band as well but not the same guy. I didn’t actually notice him as he was standing on a chair and filming in front of a pillar in the building. I ran into a friend from Middle & High school that I grew up knowing that was at the show. We started chatting and he pointed out his friend (the NYBG) was filming the show. We talked some more and he told me that they partnered to film shows, something they started doing in 1987 also. That was interesting as that is what I started doing in 1987 as well. One conversation led to another and we come to find out that we each just filmed Kiss. So when the NYBG was done filming, my common friend introduced me to him and we started talking about filming. The NYBG invited me over to his place and showed me some of the videos he shot. The picture was a lot better I thought on the camera he had, the Sony CCD-V5, which is the same camera as the Ricoh R-600, just a different manufacturer. Kind of like Ford and Mercury make the same car. Other advantages were the fact the tape was smaller, like half the size of a VHS-c tape. Another true benefit was the length of the tape was 120 minutes, and that was at the fast recording speed SP all the time. There was also no tracking to adjust on the tape. All of that along with the better picture made it a no brainer for me and I decided to buy it in less than a year of having the VHS-c camera.

This was the second night of filming with that new camera. And I was getting used to it. This was also the first time I tried filming at the Nassau Coliseum in NY. So a total new experience for me. I had just filmed the show the night before so I was comfortable with the situation. I knew it was tough to get through the security search. So, for this show I talked a friend and his girlfriend into going and seeing Bruce. They actually drove to the show from my Aunt’s home in Westchester county. I figured why try to get everything in myself to this show since I have him coming with me and asked if he could bring in a couple smaller pieces of the camera for me. That was a big mistake. I don’t know why I thought that, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, I get up to security and find someone that is not searching as strong as the others and get into that line. My friend and his girl are right behind me. So, I make it through the search witht he camera strapped to my back. My friend is wearing a coat and the guy pats them and I told him to put the stuff down his pants and he says he ‘forgot’, right!, (like he forgot to put everything down his pants? UGH!), and the security guy tells him to start emptying his pockets of the coat. He starts to pull out like three parts of the stuff, the eyepiece, the 2x lens and a battery or two…and they are in plastic baggies and he is pulling them out of his pocket like he doesn’t know how it got there! Like all criminals who say they don’t know how it got there! I am through the search observing and watching this unfold with him thinking WTF, I shouldn’t have asked him to do anything. He never ever did anything like trying to record a show before. So I see him turn back and just assume he will try another gate. So I go into the arena and go to the seats we have and just wait for him to come. We didn’t have cell phones then, there were none, so I just had to wait. Well, like almost 40-50 minutes pass and Bruce is about to go on, he knew it was like anywhere from 8:00 to 8:20pm when he starts and here it is 8:10pm and he isn’t here. Finally he strolls in with popcorn and sodas with his girl and I ask him where he was and he says, I went to the bathroom and to get food and drinks. So where are the parts to my camera, he tells me he took them back to the car. I am like WTF! Thanks for coming right to my seat to tell me what is up! So, I can’t operate the camera without the eyepiece viewfinder. There was no such thing as a side screen back then on cameras. So I had to devise a plan. I told him I am putting the camera body and all of the accessories I brought in under my seat and to not leave for any reason so my $1200 camera is not ripped off.

Then I go to the entrance. I tell the lead security guy that I am a diabetic (which I am not fortunately) and that I left my insulin in the car and I need to take it. They buy the story and will let me back in they tell me. The lead guy writes his signature on the back of my ticket stub to let me back in when I come back to the security men. So I go out to my friend’s car and get the other pieces, but I don’t have my sewn sacks with the belts I use to put it all in because those are inside the arena with the camera. So I am trying to figure out where to put all the stuff I gave him. It was like 4 or 5 items….and it wouldn’t all fit in my crotch. So I spend time walking from the car towards the arena entrance and the stuff is sliding down my leg out of my underwear, and I lean over to adjust it. I am now walking though the massive parking lot in a zig zag manner back towards the main entrance to the Nassau Coliseum. There is trash littered all over the parking lot from all the afternoon tailgates that occurred. I turn and walk back to the car because I am un-decisive about getting all of this back in, then back towards the entrance. A few times...On the way, I leaned over to tie my sneaker shoelace which had come undone. I was wasting time. It is now like 8:40pm and I think Bruce is onstage. I am sort of nervous that I will be searched again when I come back to the entrance. So finally I decide to walk back again to the car and put the 2x teleconverter magnification lens in the car, because it is too big and bulky to get back in with the other crucial stuff needed to absolutely film, the viewfinder, the extra tape, the extra batteries. So now it is like 30 minutes since I left the building. I was walking back now to go to the main entrance halfway through the parked cars in another zig zag manner without really paying attention where I was walking and then I do a sanity check of all that I have on me and I can’t find the viewfinder. WTF! WTF! WTF!!!! Now my blood pressure is up high and I begin to sort of freak out that I lost the viewfinder to my camera. I go all the way back to the car and take everything out of my pockets and no viewfinder. I look all through the car under the seats and everything and no viewfinder. WTF!!! Remember I said that I absolutely needed the viewfinder to film…there was no other way to see what you were filming without it. In fact, I didn’t know if the camera would even power up correctly without it plugged in properly. So now I am freaking…I know I had it in my hand but it isn’t on me now. If I dropped it…where the heck is it in the maze of cars parked in this sold out massive parking lot with trash strewn all over the place on the ground! I am so F’d now. Why did I have to let my friend try bring in these parts, it would have been fine if I just did it myself entirely. I am stressing big time now. My only shot is to try and retrace my steps in a zig zag motion through the parking lot hoping to see it laying on the ground in a clear plastic baggie. Right! Slim chance at best but I needed to try. Who’s to say this is the path I walked where I dropped it? I wasn't paying attention really to how I walked through the cars....So I start…it is like 9:00pm now and I am sure Bruce is playing. Plus my friends are probably wondering where I am and I am thinking please don’t leave the seats, my camera is under there. Blood Pressure 210/160 by now for sure! (Heck, I feel stressed writing about it again!!! I hope there isn't a bad dream coming about this experience again!!). Well, I walk three quarters of the way through the lot trying to trace the steps I took that I thought that I took. Nothing. I look back and look at all the trash everywhere on the ground and think this is hopeless….then I see one large grocery brown paper bag like 40 yards from me behind where I walked and thought…maybe it fell in there, yea right, I was ready to give up, but let’s walk back and look for a last time, so I go to this brown paper bag and whaa-la!!!! The eyepiece is in the freakin’ bag! Are you kidding me! It must have been where I leaned over to tie my shoe and the viewfinder fell out of my upper shirt pocket right into that bag. Un freakin’ real!! So now I needed to get my composure and head back in. I probably looked like I just had an insulin meltdown, Everyone is in the arena that is going to the show. The parking lot is desolate. So I go up to the gate and they don’t even search me after all of the mental debate I had. F#%k!!!!. After all of that indecision about them re-searching me and re-thinking the situation in the parking lot, they don’t even touch me. UGH! So I think I am home free….they examine the ticket. The lead supervisor is not there now at that entrance. Then the security guy and usher dealing with me tell me that this section number on my ticket does not even exist in the arena. WTF!!! Are you kidding me twice! These dumba$$es think my ticket is for a section that doesn’t exist?! What’s next now? So they tell me to stay right here with someone and they are going to go check it out. I tell them, look!, look at the painted section numbers in red paint right above that entrance tunnel to the arena and I point at it. It has the numbers 326 327 328 painted right above the entrance tunnel….I am in section 328. Look at my ticket, 328, look at the wall and the number painted on the wall, they match! But no, the guy still is insistant on that the section does not exist in the arena. What a moron! So he leaves to go check it out. That is when my Blood Pressure rises again…and I start to think, oh man, they are going to go to the actual seats and see the camcorder and stuff under my seat and get my camera or bust my friends and this is going to be bad. Thank god no….the guy comes back and says ok, go on in. I am spent now....what a moron. Geez….so I make it back in during the first set like 8 songs into the 1st set of the show. My friends are like where have you been? I am like, you don’t want to know. I didn't know weather to be more pissed at him, at me, or at the nassau security and usher who run this place. Somehow I was able to gain composure and put that immediately out of my mind and start filming. Like a QB that is intercepted for a pick six and is back on the field 2 minutes later having to throw another pass and lead his team. I assembled the camera as fast as I could and started filming.

I filmed this night without the 2x lens because I left it in the car. I didn’t do that often because I liked the closeness to have 12:2 zoom capability vs. 6:1. I also stayed where my seat was and in the actual seat my ticket was for, something also rare as I just didn’t want to miss anymore of the show or deal with any more BS. Born in the USA was coming up soon to close the first set, one of my favorite songs, so I stayed put for the night. I think I recovered well. But this show taught me a lot. Easily the most trouble at a show I ever had to that point. But somehow I got a little over 2 hour’s worth of footage of this show. Good thing Bruce plays long sets! And after all of these years, I obtained a great audio from JEMS to synch to the video to increase the listening pleasure when watching the video. Thanks JEMS! So, from a friend that was clueless at gatting any recording equipment into an arena, to the depths of a brown paper grocery bag amongst all the littered trash in the Nassau Coliseum parking lot, to a fake insulin problem to leave the arena during the show and get back in, to a moronic security guy and usher who didn't even know his own arena, to my blood pressure recovering after a few songs of filming (imagine that, filming was actually more relaxing than all I had gone through, sort of a comfort zone) I bring you for the first time, the second show filmed on the new at the time state of the art Ricoh R-600 8mm camcorder in 1988! As the NYBG would always state, God Love Video...he must, because he was definitely on my side this night! Enjoy it as I will take an intervenous beer now to chill out....CBG5150 posted to Dime 2014-05-06