Nassau Nights - A 'Lilbud' Compilation

I'm not going to be one-upped, even by one of my most wanted archive releases.

DOWNLOAD LINK: https://mega.nz/folder/9xACWLiC#ErYQrKqXxtfFYU8T5C2Amw

Well, well, well, here we are again.

A little background first. This year started with my first compilation, 'Two Lanes, Two Hearts', my ultimate Springsteen concert. That was followed by 'Nights at the Boston Music Hall', a compilation taking the best of the 4 night stand at the titular hall and creating the ideal show out of the 4 shows. 

I thought that was it, I didn't have any ideas for other comps. Then October came. I started listening to bootlegs again as a way to help get me through my daily load of classwork and projects for College. An idea started to form, which turned into 'And the Leaves Came Tumbling Down'. A compilation drawing from the shows in the Falls of 1980 and 1984. This was also the least time I spent on a compilation to date, only taking 3 days to create.

Then we come to November, I am a frequent visitor to r/BruceSpringsteen, and the corresponding discord server. They announced plans to dedicate the month of December to celebrating the 40th anniversary of the legendary 3 night stand at the Nassau Coliseum in Nassau, New York. Those shows took place on the 28th, 29th and 31st of December 1980.

I started the compilation the week of Thanksgiving, mainly just the artwork and starting to plan the setlist. The rest of the compilation would have to wait for school to stop kicking my ass.

The plan was to include every song played on the three nights, which was easy enough, as the setlist was relatively static all three nights. So I had 2-3 choices for each songs, except for the one offs like Incident (only on the 29th) and Held Up Without A Gun/In the Midnight Hour/Auld Lang Syne (All only on 31st.)

For the sources, I used the Hussey remaster for the 28th, Crystal Cat's Coliseum Night for the 29th. And Crystal Cat's Nassau Night for the 31st (with the exception of 'The Price you Pay, which I will touch on later.)

The tape for the 28th was in fair condition, pretty loud, but good. The 29th tape was pretty noisy, the 31st tape was both noisy and had a whining/ringing noise. 

I wanted to use more from the 28th, but the songs were pretty loud and didn't always blend with songs from the other 2 nights. The majority of the show comes from the 29th, as the transitions were easy and the tape needed the least amount of work to fix. 

Touching on the topic of "The Price You Pay", on the CC tape (Nassau Night), the ending harmonica solo was edited. So I was left to use the "From Master Tapes (EV2)" tape, which was mixed from the master multitracks by an assistant engineer working under Toby Scott back in the 80's. His tape was forgotten about by him until somewhat recently, when it was passed along and released by EV2. I had to fade the end of Fade Away from Nassau Night into the end of the same song from the master tape and blend it into the master version.

Right now, it is around noon on December 24th, 2020. I had intended to release this on the 23rd, but spent the day remixing a good portion of this to fix some of the transitions. The final project is better due to the extra day in the oven so to speak. 

I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoyed making it.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone, Lilbud (December 2020)