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Rod Tootell asks how well-served the Boss has been by his official concert recordings – and nominates his Top 20 live tracks (legal or otherwise).

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN ON TOUR (Bloomsbury) is the third book Dave Marsh has written about Bruce Springsteen, and its tone varies little from its predecessors.

As usual Marsh is at pains to point out how Springsteen has delighted fans all around the world delivering shows--sometimes up to four hours long--that seldom if ever disappoint. Springsteen, we learn again, is a performer with a conscience, making sure he gives value for money, trading in humour, romance, energy, and political commitment.

Bruce Springsteen On Tour is meant to describe Springsteen's life on tour and yet the insights normally reserved for a book of this nature are mostly missing. So who always gets to sit at the back of the tour bus? What do they play at the sound checks? Does Springsteen really go home after delivering an explosion of rock and roll and start writing songs for his new Nebraska album?

There's another way in which fans are short-changed by Bruce Springsteen On Tour. Marsh's book suggests that you had to be there. Well, some of us were there, but many have only become fans within the last 10 or 15 years and the live material that CBS/Sony has made available over the years has been oddly wrong-footed. It's hard to know whether this is due to the lack of thought on behalf of Springsteen and manager Jon Landau or possibly too much of it.

In 1975 we awaited a great live album to show that all the media hype about his live performances was true. It never came, one assumes because the lawsuit between Springsteen and his ex-manager excluded any releases. A steady stream of bootlegs kept us going, but these were of varying quality. No one was complaining though. The Darkness On The Edge Of Town tour was well-bootlegged, the only CBS live material showing up on the No Nukes album. When Live 1975-85 appeared it simply wasn't good enough. This was no live concert but more a catalogue of live material, not a representation of what a live Springsteen gig was all about.

The next offering was In Concert/MTV Plugged, again not a real show and not even with the E St Band. Versions of "Wish I Were Blind" and "If I Should Fall Behind" are great but it ain't the real deal. Then we have Live in New York City, which seemed to be patched together from two concerts. Since Springsteen had no new album to promote it's likely that this was simply a showcase for two songs, "Land Of Hope And Dreams" and "American Skin."

In 2007 came Live In Dublin from the Seeger Sessions tour. This is a patch of three nights and is way overlong. One CD would have been enough to get the real juice from what was a great tour. Which brings us to Hammersmith Odeon '75, the album that should have been released in 1976, the one that could have done the job in the first place. Springsteen believed that this concert was the worst he had ever played. When many of us who were there heard about this, we struggled to work out how blinded we must have been. But then we weren't and when Springsteen listened to the tapes on the 30th anniversary of Born to Run he realised he'd been wrong all along.

So what of the other material that could have been released instead of the dodgy official ones? Some of those early bootlegs bearing titles such as You Can Trust Your Car To The Man Who Wears The Star and Paid The Cost To Be The Boss were mostly from radio broadcasts that arrived in England on scratchy vinyl or over recorded cassettes. Listening to some of this material on the internet in their original form you wonder that some of it has remained hidden for so long.

A concert from The Main Point, Philadelphia in 1975 was recently released in a series called Transmissions, not I think from the Sony camp but in any case with only selected tracks. Unfortunately it leaves out the glorious version of "Incident On 57th Street" with Suki Lahav on violin. Then there's the concert from the rightfully-heralded 1975 nights at the Bottom Line featuring a great version of Jackie de Shannon's "When You Walk In The Room". A memorable gig from New York in 1976 has a lengthy version of the Animals' "It's My Life," during which Springsteen describes the stormy relationship he had with his father.

One show that you feel could easily have made it onto an official release is the 1978 concert from Winterland, San Francisco. This is a real Springsteen concert, similar to what we were to experience in 1981 but darker and heavier. The guitar work from Springsteen and Miami Steve is outstanding. Live versions of "The Fever", "Because the Night" and "Point Blank" have never been played better, the latter knocking spots off the version that ended up on The River.

From then on the live material seems to lose its edge. The bootlegs fail to capture the stadium sound as well as at the smaller venues. The vocals sound brasher and the guitars don't come through as well. This situation doesn't resolve itself until around 2002 when the venues get smaller again and the recording techniques improve.

However, running parallel to these stadium tours are Springsteen's solo shows, and here sound quality is no problem. Springsteen had never played a solo tour before 1996 when he went out to promote The Ghost Of Tom Joad. The results as seen at the Albert Hall were compelling but rather awkward. The concert he played in Paris that year is a different story. Here he approached the material in a relaxed mood. If the album itself was initially hard to connect to, this concert is a revelation. Bruce offers up a selection of stories showing various characters victimised by their environment. He plays exquisitely, comfortable in a new skin. This is a concert that deserves to be heard.

Lastly there is the Devils And Dust tour of 2005 when he went solo again. This time he didn't just keep to the album with a few chosen oldies to bolster up the set. It has been said that this was the tour when Bruce Springsteen discovered Bruce Springsteen. It is definitely the tour when no song was off limits. He aired songs that he hadn't played for 30 years, mostly done with real care. "Two Hearts" is a different song, a better song, "Reason To Believe" sounds like the cry of the hobo with a bottle of whisky inside him and a hellhound on his trail. "My Beautiful Reward" is played on a pump organ. "Cautious Man" and "Valentine's Day" are both stunning.

Maybe live albums have to be released near to the albums that they represent but the trend seems to suggest otherwise. Older material, such as Springsteen’s Tracks, Dylan's' Bootleg Series and Van Morrison's Philosopher's Stone, has been warmly welcomed. Springsteen has said that he has another Tracks up his sleeve. Why not include some live material?

To any Springsteen fan it is the music that thrills, not the knowledge that he is a good person, spreading the message of rock'n'roll salvation. So let's redress the balance. Perhaps Dave Marsh could hand over the baton to someone else, and some of this great music could see the light of day.

Live If You Got It: The Best of Bruce Onstage (Legal or otherwise)

1. "New York Song" – Main Point, Philadelphia, 24/3/73 An intimate early version of "New York Serenade".

2. "Incident On 57th Street" – Main Point, Philadelphia, 2/2/75 Springsteen at his most romantic with piano and violin.

3. "Thunder Road" – Hammersmith Odeon, London, 18/11/75 Stripped-down version as Springsteen faces the critics.

4. "Hard To Be A Saint In The City" – Hammersmith Odeon, London, 18/11/75 Two guitars heading for a wall of sound.

5. "Something In The Night" – Palladium, New York, 11/4/76 Arguably better than the album version.

6. "Because The Night" – Winterland, San Francisco, 15/12/78 Never bettered.

7. "Prove It All Night" – Winterland, San Francisco, 15/12/78 Springsteen's guitar cuts sheet metal.

8. "Jungleland" – Winterland, San Francisco, 15/12/78 All the best aspects of this immortal song, present and correct.

9. "Wreck On The Highway" – University of Arizona, Tempe, 5/11/80 Next stop Nebraska?

10. "Boom, Boom" – Stockholm, 3/7/88 The E St Band step up a few gears on John Lee Hooker cover.

11. "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" – Paris, 21/2/96 Considered a low point for many fans, this tour needs re-evaluating. All literary discussion aside, this performance is one of his finest moments.

12. "Highway 29" – Paris, 21/2/96 Breathtaking.

13. "Working On the Highway (Diddy Wah Diddy)" – Fleet Center, Boston, 22/8/99 The E St Band can play anything. This is close to country music.

14. "Streets Of Philadelphia" – Fleet Center, Boston, 22/8/99 Perfectly done. Danny Federici tears your heart out.

15. "Land Of Hope And Dreams" – Live in New York City, 2000 There are, I'm sure, better versions. This one's pretty damn good.

16. "Empty Sky" – Wembley Arena, London, 27/10/02 Springsteen and Scialfa duet… Wow!

17. "Valentine's Day" – Value City, Columbus, Ohio 2005 Trawling his back catalogue, this is one of many jewels from the 2005 tour.

18. "Racing In The streets" – The Point, Dublin, 24/5/05 Played on piano as a lonely lament.

19. "Paradise" – Albert Hall, London, 27/5/05 The whispered confession of a suicide bomber. Total silence in the house.

20. "Dream Baby Dream" – Wachovia Spectrum, Philadelphia, 8/11/05 Suicide cover as hypnotic mantra.

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