"The Case of Bruce Springsteen," Bruce + Patti at the Bottom Line, NYC, November 26, 1976
"South Jersey doesn't like Asbury Park Jersey."
Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith have performed onstage together a total of six times*, with the most recent of course being last week’s tribute show at Carnegie Hall, which I wrote about for both Variety and over at jukeboxgraduate.com. In the latter I mentioned a particular outing from 1976 at the Bottom Line, and in tribute to their friendship I thought I’d do a deeper dive into that particular evening.
Patti Smith released her second album, Radio Ethiopia, in September of 1976, and she toured with the Patti Smith Group relentlessly during that year. She’d returned from dates in Europe and the UK at the end of October, not long before she briefly joined Bruce and E Street onstage at the Palladium at the October 30th show. “Joined” is doing a lot of work there, because it wasn’t planned; she was in the audience, almost certainly an invited guest, and she made her way to the front of the stage and got invited up. Bruce vaguely remembers the event, Patti’s never spoken of it, but there is tape!
At the Palladium, there’s a moment in “Rosalita,” which, in 1976, was foundational to the E Street canon but not yet sacred – if you listen to the recording, it seems like the entirety of the Palladium is yelling their own unique, specific and somehow yet unplayed request, and Bruce tells everyone to shut up – and so it’s chugging along and fulfilling its role as The Song During Which We Introduce The Band, with all of that entails. There’s a surprise bonus when he brings on the E Street Horns and they execute a small and delightful melodic flourish derived from “10th Avenue Freeze-Out.”
“I want to say that I’m proud… I’m privileged…to bring up here before your faces…the magnificent, the stupendous, from the Las Vegas of the East Coast, Asbury Park, the Miami Horns!” There’s a little bit of decoration on the individual intros but not a ton, it’s mostly moving along – “On the organ, clap real hard, his mother’s here tonight: Dan Federici!” – and then, at approximately 1:37:41, Bruce announces, “Patti Smith!”
