Time flies. Dammit. The latest reminder is that Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run is celebrating its 30th anniversary.

Talk about buzz marketing: Springsteen’s legend was built on the extraordinary word of mouth generated by his incredible live performances. It’s often been said there are two kinds of people: Springsteen fans, and those who’ve never seen him in concert. Having seen him about two dozen times, I’d have to agree.

When Born To Run came out on August 25, 1975, the official release of any material from his concerts was still a decade into the future. Fans would spend months scouring independent record stores seeking bootlegs of his live shows. Finding a badly recorded third-generation tape of even one song from a Springsteen concert felt like discovering the Rosetta Stone.

Fast-forward three decades. The 30th anniversary edition of Born To Run comes out next month. It consists of a remastered CD, plus two DVDs: one a documentary on the making of the album, the other a landmark concert that’s been traded for years on bootleg vinyl and video: November 18, 1975, at the Hammersmith Odeon in London.

And the Rosetta Stone is just a click away, no scouring necessary: This link on Amazon offers the complete Hammersmith Odeon version of the title track of the album NPR declared “one of the most important American musical works of the 20th century.”

Yep, time flies. Cool.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2005 at 6:00 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Springsteen, This 'n' That.