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Bruce Springsteen / The Ties That Bind: The River Collection

By Paul Sinclair

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The Ties That Bind: The River Collection is a brand new six or seven disc deluxe set that takes comprehensive look at Bruce Springsteen‘s The River era.

The set will be offered in 4CD+2 x blu-ray or 4CD+3DVD and will contains 52 audio tracks with a wealth of unreleased material, and four hours of never-before-seen video on blu-ray (or DVD depending on which set you opt for).

The audio element is comprised of the original The River double album as released in 1980 and the first official release of The River: Single Album which is the 10-track album that Springsteen recorded in 1979 as a follow up to 1978’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town but never released. The fourth CD on the box set is 22-track collection called The River: Outtakes, which spans the entire The River sessions in 1979 and 1980. Eleven songs are rarities that have never been released before – for the most part are completely unheard

The blu-rays (or DVDs) will include a a brand new documentary The Ties That Bind (60 mins) about The River; never-released, newly edited multi-camera footage from Springsteen’s 1980 show in Tempe, Arizona and never-before-seen; rare tour rehearsal footage. The 5 November Arizona gig runs for 2 hours, 40 minutes features early live versions of over half of The River songs.

The Ties That Bind: The River Collection is packaged in a 10″ x 12″ box and includes a 148-page hardcover book of 200 rare or previously unseen photos and memorabilia with a new essay by Mikal Gilmore.

The Ties That Bind: The River Collection will be released on 4 December 2015.

pre-order

4CD+2Blu-ray Edition

4CD+3DVD Edition

track_listing

Disc: 1 / The River 
1. The Ties That Bind
2. Sherry Darling
3. Jackson Cage
4. Two Hearts
5. Independence Day
6. Hungry Heart
7. Out In The Street
8. Crush On You
9. You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
10. I Wanna Marry You
11. The River

Disc: 2 / The River
1. Point Blank
2. Cadillac Ranch
3. I’m A Rocker
4. Fade Away
5. Stolen Car
6. Ramrod
7. The Price You Pay
8. Drive All Night
9. Wreck On The Highway

Disc: 3 / The River: Single Album
1. The Ties That Bind
2. Cindy
3. Hungry Heart
4. Stolen Car
5. Be True
6. The River
7. You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
8. The Price You Pay
9. I Wanna Marry You
10. Loose End

Disc: 4 / The River: Outtakes
1. Meet Me In The City
2. The Man Who Got Away
3. Little White Lies
4. The Time That Never Was
5. Night Fire
6. Whitetown
7. Chain Lightning
8. Party Lights
9. Paradise By The C
10. Stray Bullet
11. Mr. Outside
12. Roulette
13. Restless Nights
14. Where The Bands Are
15. Dollhouse
16. Living On The Edge Of The World
17. Take ’em As They Come
18. Ricky Wants A Man Of Her Own
19. I Wanna Be With You
20. Mary Lou
21. Held Up Without A Gun
22. From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)

Blu-Ray Content:

Blu-ray Disc 1
The Ties That Bind (Documentary)

Blu-ray Disc 2
The River Tour, Tempe 1980 – Concert Part 1

1. “Born to Run”
2. “Prove It All Night”
3. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”
4. “Jackson Cage”
5. “Two Hearts”
6. “The Promised Land”
7. “Out in the Street”
8. “The River”
9. “Badlands”
10. “Thunder Road”
11. “No Money Down”
12. “Cadillac Ranch”
13. “Hungry Heart”
14. “Fire”
15. “Sherry Darling”
16. “I Wanna Marry You”
17. “Crush on You”
18. “Ramrod”
19. “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)”

The River Tour, Tempe 1980 – Concert Part 2

1. “Drive All Night”
2. “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”
3. “I’m A Rocker”
4. “Jungleland”
5. “Detroit Medley”
6. “Where The Bands Are (Credits)”

BONUS: The River Tour Rehearsals

– Ramrod
– Cadillac Ranch
– Fire
– Crush On You
– Sherry Darling

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55 Comments

55 thoughts on “Bruce Springsteen / The Ties That Bind: The River Collection”

  1. Love this SDE but I just wish they had put the Tempe concert on CD. Another wasted opportunity to make a SDE completely awesome – it’s still excellent though!!

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  3. Paul ;
    Is the 2 CDs of the River original included in this set the same remastered version
    As the 2 cd copy that is in the Springsteen Collection Volume 1?

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  9. Anyone interested in this set at all…get onto Rolling Stone.com for a quite detailed interview with Bruce’s longtime archivist, film guy Thom Ziming. He “built” this set basically..good reading. And wets the appetite… Nebraska next ? if he can help it… Yes !
    Datelined 19th Oct.

  10. I’ll be buying this on Bluray, although what I really want is the full concert on CD. Amazon UK price is a joke, only showing it as an import. I assume it’ll improve but good on Spin for putting the cat amongst the pigeons with a vaguely sensible price!

    No-one will get much sense out of me this Christmas!

  11. I saw him at Newcastle City Hall in 1981 – incredible. His last great tour for me I didn’t like the Born in the USA tour at St James’s much) I am partial to the Tunnel of Love Express but since he has turned me off. Wasn’t keen at the Isle of Wight either). From 1973-81 he was a particular favourite of mine and as a result I have to have this it looks terrific, to go alongside Born To Run and Darkness – even though I have the boot ‘The Ties That Bind’ on CD.

    1. Tony, I have been an E Street Band fan since the early 70’s. You mentioned that since the Tunnel of Love you’ve been turned off. I’ll tell you specifically when I began to lose faith. I realize that we lost Clarence and Danny, and those were big hits for Bruce. He took it very hard. But, when he brought Tom Morello, who is basically a heavy metal musician, and all of the other overkill(too many horns, too many background singers), that’s where I became upset. Why Tom Morello, and actually firstly, why a fourth lead guitar player. Bruce already had himself, Steven, and Nils. I know I’m getting off the topic here, but there’s probably only a couple of songs on “High Hopes” that I care to even listen to. “The River” IS the E Street Band that we grew up with and loved. That’s why I was so excited to see this box set come out. But, some others have made some vaid points on here.

  12. For the River single CD, I realise that there are three tracks which aren’t on the double, but are all the others different versions to those released? Otherwise it just appears to be duplication and I don’t really see the point.

    1. “Stolen Car” and “You Can Look” are radically different versions. (This version of “Stolen Car” was officially released in 1998 on the Tracks box set.) “The Price You Pay” has an alternate 2nd verse not found on the version on The River. The other four tracks are pretty similar, if not identical, to what was released on The River.

  13. Pingback: Deal alert / Bruce Springsteen: The River deluxe 4CD+2blu-ray | superdeluxeedition

    1. The Collins series has been postponed until next year. Warner Music may as well cancel it, given the almost unanimous negative reaction to the announced track listing, which Collins refuses to change.

  18. The packaging looks great but the content underwhelms. I wish they had remixed The River. It was recorded on analog multitrack but mixed digitally, which means we’re stuck with low res digital. Also, there’s still another album’s worth of unreleased material sitting in the vault, including some tracks later given to Gary U.S. Bonds. Plus, there are some tracks that, like Save My Love For You from the Darkness era, were extensively rehearsed but never recorded in the studio. Songs like Chevrolet Deluxe and a full band arrangement of Janey Needs a Shooter. I wish Bruce has made new recordings of those songs. Finally, while I can’t complain about Tempe being incomplete – they used everything they had — I am disappointed that we’re not getting more bonus video footage. There should be video of hours of tour rehearsals, and we’re only getting five songs. And there’s the one-time-only performance of the entire River album, in sequence, from 2009. One of Clarence’s final performances. That should have been included. And of course there’s the footage from the No Nukes concerts, which took place in the middle of the River sessions and included the live debut of the title track. If it sounds like I’m trashing the box set, I’m not. It’s a good set. But it could have been so much better. I just don’t see why they’re holding back at this point.

    1. Probably used the 2014 remasters.
      Content is an issue. The artists tend not to want to meddle with the original release in the box set. Otherwise Springsteen could of added tracks to both CD1 & CD2. He could even added tracks to the “original” album – depending on the length of that album [but I’m sure they don’t average to 8 minutes each].
      As for additional footage, it could depend on who owns the rights to the footage. A full live album footage from one of the recent tours would of been great [Born In The USA was an bonus to some editions of the last album].

  19. Nice to have the new stuff. Hopefully full Tempe has a download, but could have used stills in the DVD to give us the whole thing in 5.1? And, maybe saving some stuff for Tracks 2………

    Philip

  21. Shame about the concert video missing 1/3 of the show. Since it was recorded in multi-track an audio release of the complete thing would be very welcome.

  22. BluRay Disc 1 is going to be a little content-lite. Only a 60-minute documentary on it. And the duplication of outtakes that have already been released on Tracks is disappointing. But somehow whatever they released was never going to completely live up to expectations.

  23. Can’t really get my head around why these tracks are not on the concert video:

    Darkness On The Edge Of Town (4.19)
    Independence Day (7.06)
    Factory (3.12)
    Racing In The Street (8.54)
    Here She Comes (4.35)
    The Ties That Bind (3.29)
    Stolen Car (4.38)
    Wreck On The Highway (4.51)
    Point Blank (7.50)
    Backstreets (7.58)

  24. Backstreets.com has confirmed that “Held Up Without A Gun” is the “Hungry Heart” b-side and not the live version from “Essential Bruce Springsteen.” Backstreets also mentions that the reason why the film is incomplete is because not every song was filmed, they used everything that they could. The concert film is still 2hrs 40mins, which is certainly a significant amount of music. The concert film is also mixed into 5.1 by Bob Clearmountain. Too bad Clearmountain didn’t do a 5. mix of the studio album, that’s been a major oversight of these Springsteen boxes.

    1. Not a huge fan of the selection on the box, but at least my possible box purchase wouldn’t be subsidizing your 5.1 mix habit.
      My problem with the selection is the music on 2 1/2 of the 4 CDs I already own. The concert on video? Great. That’s one viewing. Where’s the audio that I would listen to multiple times for decades to come? Documentary…one view.
      I’m passing on this, because an early one disc version of the River and a half disc of non-LP tracks don’t justify $130.
      Why not Ties That Bind, the non LP tracks (even the previously released) and the audio of the full concert to make a great 5CD deluxe box for $80? Super deluxe it by adding 5.1 River and maybe the videos for $130, but boxes need to stop being filled out with one view videos and never listen to (for most purchasers) 5.1 mixes.

  25. Its undoubtedly going to be a nice set and when it comes to Bruce, I’ll always be multiple purchasing whatever the content however it would have been nice if we could have got the complete Tempe audio (download?) as part of this collection given the number of songs that have not made the cut for the filmed version. Perhaps we might get this for the next live download release which would be due around the time of the box set release

    I can only hope “Held Up Without A Gun” is the “Hungry Heart” b-side and not the live version that crept onto Disc 3 of the original “Essential Bruce Springsteen” collection

    Finally can’t wait to see what laughable price Amazon UK put on both the sets.

  27. I am a little disappointed, the remastered album is already available very cheaply. Half of the bonus tracks have been released decades ago, the concert is incomplete and does anyone need a 1 hr doc of Bruce talking about the album in 2015? Doubt that will be a more than a one time watch (if that).

    So part of a great show, book and a few decent outtakes for $120. Hmmmm.

    1. I always enjoy the documentaries that come with SDE’s ( Darkness, Born to Run ).Many of us don’t have the bonus tracks and as someone else mentioned at least Springsteen seems to put some thought and effort into these unlike some other artists

    2. Yes, I bought The Promise two disc set rather than the Darkness box. The doc got shown in BBCs Imagine series (as did the docs from the box sets of Graceland and Bridge over Troubld Water) good to watch once, but don’t care much to own them.

      Any sign of a two disc set for the bonus track for this?

  29. [pause for shameless self-promotion] If anyone’s interested in reading about the evolution of The Ties That Bind into The River, there’s a chapter on it in my book The Greatest Albums You’ll Never Hear (Cassell, 2014). I should warn that while I’m enthusiastic about Ties, I’m rather rude about The River.

  30. A super deluxe edition of an album that truly is super deluxe. Cannot wait!

    Glad they have added previously released tracks from the River sessions too (e.g. Be True and Held Up Without A Gun) and not just left them marooned on Tracks and Essential’s bonus disc. Visual content looks very good; new documentary and live footage. Looks like they have really thought about this set and they are releasing both Blu Ray and DVD sets. McCartney, are you listening? The Boss seems to have top-quality archive releases that seem to cover most, if not all, bases.

    If this one sells well (I am sure it will!) I bet a Born In The USA set in a similar mold will come in the next year or too.

        1. As long as the item isn’t ludicrously expensive, if you’re in the UK charges will be 20% VAT plus maybe Royal Mail ‘admin’ fee which is normally either £8.50 or £11.50. The Paul McCartney sets were cheaper from Amazon Canada even with all that stuff added on (I had to pay).

          1. I opted for the premium delivery service for the McCartney sets from Amazon Canada – Even with the £28 custom charge the boxes were still a good £50 cheaper than an Amazon UK purchase.

        3. You’ll bew paying duties no matter where you are buying from. If you live in the UK [for example], wouldn’t they charge duties whether in Canada, US or Japan? Especially pricier items.

          1. Yes, if you are in the EU and are buying outside the EU then VAT is due and import duty if the item is pricey (over £100-ish)

      3. michelle, not sure where you live. i am in canada so it will be in reverse but it works like this here. wait until it sold by independent sellers on amazon and then make sure they deliver by canada post. there should be no duty. so if i order to canada from abroad and it is delivered by this country postal service i never had to pay any duty or taxes on the cd. but it depends on the country i guess. good luck

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