POINT BLANK

Live 15 Dec 1978 version

[Spoken intro:] This is uh... You think everything's all right and you wake up and find out you've been shot point blank.

Say your prayers little darling and go to bed tonight
Pray that tomorrow everything will be alright
But tomorrow's fall in number, in number one by one
You wake up and you're dying, you don't even know what from

Well they shot you point blank
They shot you in the back, baby, point blank
You been fooled this time, little girl, that's a fact, point blank
Right between the eyes, they got you point blank
Right between the pretty lies that they sell
And there's nothing you can do about it, baby

They fed you and they raised you, how fast you learned
That all those pretty little things that baby sees, baby has to earn
So you worked your hands down to the bone till they drove you half price
And still that pretty little things that baby wants, she can never have

'Cause they got you point blank
Whoa they've got you in their sights, baby, point blank
One false move and baby the lights go out, point blank
Yeah right between the eyes, they got you point blank
Yeah right between the pretty lies that they sell

Day turns to night time and the night turns to day
And all, all of your hopes and your promises somehow they just fade away
Till they've got you, they got you good, holding your number and just try to stay alive
But don't you know girl that no one survives
Baby unhurt no one survives, untouched no one survives
No whoa whoa

Eyes filled with anger, hearts filled with hate
You see their faces on the street and you just turn away, but baby it's too late
You hear them crying to you in the night
Oh you hear them knocking at your door, there's no sleep for baby tonight
And so you stumble out into the morning searching for your usual fix
But girl them old distractions, man, they just don't give the kicks they used to
So you go home and pack your pistol, you go out looking for someone
But girl can't you see they got you caught in the middle, you don't know where to aim your gun

Oh baby aim it point blank
Right between their eyes, baby point blank
Right between the pretty lies that they sell, point blank
They got you in their sights, point blank
One false move and baby the lights go out
They've got you in their sights, point blank
One false move and baby the lights go out, baby point blank
One false move, and baby the lights go out, point blank
One false move, just one false move, girl
They've got you in their sights, baby point blank
One false move, and baby the lights go out

Info

The above lyrics are for the live 15 Dec 1978 performance of POINT BLANK at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, CA, during the Darkness On The Edge Of Town Tour.

The 15 Dec 1978 Show

During the Darkness On The Edge Of Town Tour, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band performed two consecutive shows at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, CA, on 15 and 16 Dec 1978. According to Billboard magazine, both nights sold-out well in advance ─ a total of 10,800 tickets were sold with gross receipts of $80,975.

Winterland Ballroom opened in 1928 as an ice skating rink that could be converted into a seated entertainment venue. In 1971, concert promoter Bill Graham took over the facility. He renovated it and converted it to exclusive use as a 5,400-capacity music venue. At the end of 1978, Winterland Ballroom closed down. Graham explained to Billboard that spiraling costs in operating the facility, which is used only sporadically, along with continuing pressure from various Fillmore District neighborhood organizations, are the reasons for the closing. To commemorate the final days of use of Winterland Ballroom, Gragam booked shows nearly every night in December 1978. Acts included Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Kenny Loggins, Ramones, Greg Kihn Band, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Blondie, and Grateful Dead, among others.

According to Brucebase, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's two shows at Winterland Ballroom may have been filmed on the in-house video system, but no concrete evidence has ever emerged that indicate that this is the case. There is plenty of video footage of other artists at the venue from around the same period, but the most likely scenario is that any film of those two night was lost in a fire at Bill Graham's San Francisco warehouse offices in 1985. It is possible that a copy may still reside in Springsteen's vaults.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's 15 Dec 1978 concert was broadcast live on local radio station KSAN-FM and also simulcast to audiences in Sacramento, Eugene, Portland, and Seattle on their respective rock stations. This also marked the fifth and final live radio broadcast from the Darkness On The Edge Of Town Tour. Home recordings of the show were taped off the airways and have since circulated among fans. The last three songs ─ TENTH AVENUE FREEZE-OUT, RAISE YOUR HAND, and QUARTER TO THREE ─ were not part of the broadcast, but they are available on soundboard tapes that have long circulated among fans.

A fan who was present at the show recalls with a certain degree of certainty that when the show was over and the stage was cleared, Springsteen and the band returned some minutes later to perform one more song, TWIST AND SHOUT, for those who remained. However, it's unlikely that the song was performed on this night based on the available recordings and the lack of any supporting evidence.

Promotional poster for the 15 and 16 Dec 1978 shows at Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, CA

Ticket stub for the 15 Dec 1978 show at Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, CA

In December 2019, the complete 15 Dec 1978 concert was officially released on Live.BruceSpringsteen.net (see the "Official Live Downloads" section below for more details). The concert was recorded live with the Record Plant Remote Truck by Pete Carlson. Three reel-to-reel tape recorders were in action: two 2-inch, 24-track machines jointly recorded the concert and a high quality 15-IPS, 2-track recorder served as a back-up/reference capturing the front-of-house mix as it happened. The surviving multi-track reels from that night cover less than half the show, either because some tapes were lost over time or because there were complications during the recording. Luckily, four decades later, the 15-IPS, 2-track master tapes were discovered. They were transferred by Jamie Howarth in 2019 at Plangent Processes, with audio engineering and restoration by Jon Altschiller and additional engineering by Danielle Warman. Small portions of THE PROMISED LAND, JUNGLELAND, FIRE, QUARTER TO THREE, and Bill Graham's introduction are missing on the master tapes; a two-track broadcast recording was used to complete the show. The recording was mastered to DSD and PCM by Adam Ayan at Gateway Mastering Studios in Portland, ME.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- Winterland 12/15/78

The 15 Dec 1978 broadcast from Winterland Ballroom was commercially released in Europe. Since 2005 some enterprising record labels in Europe (mostly in the UK) have been releasing Bruce Springsteen radio and TV broadcasts (and some soundboard recordings) from the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Though these releases are not authorized by Bruce Springsteen or his record company, they are lawful due to a legal loophole in Europe.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- Winterland Night 1978

3xCD - Leftfield Media (LFM3CD532) - UK, 2014

This release contains the 15 Dec 1978 broadcast from Winterland Ballroom.

Bruce Springsteen -- Winterland 15th December 1978

3xCD - Echoes (ECHO3CD2001) - UK, 2014

This release contains the 15 Dec 1978 broadcast from Winterland Ballroom.

Bruce Springsteen -- Winterland 15th December 1978

4xLP - Echoes (ECHO4LP2001) - UK, 2014

This release contains the 15 Dec 1978 broadcast from Winterland Ballroom.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- Winterland Night 1978 Volume One

2xLP - Let Them Eat Vinyl (LETV257LP) - UK, 2015

This release contains part 1 of three of the 15 Dec 1978 broadcast from Winterland Ballroom.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- Winterland Night 1978 Volume Two

2xLP - Let Them Eat Vinyl (LETV258LP) - UK, 2015

This release contains part 2 of three of the 15 Dec 1978 broadcast from Winterland Ballroom.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- Winterland Night 1978 Volume Three

LP - Let Them Eat Vinyl (LETV259LP) - UK, 2015

This release contains part 3 of three of the 15 Dec 1978 broadcast from Winterland Ballroom.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- Winterland Night 1978

Digital album - Lilith Records (no catalog number) - UK, 2016

This is a download-only digital album. It contains the 15 Dec 1978 broadcast from Winterland Ballroom.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- The Complete 1978 Radio Broadcasts

15xCD - Sound Stage (SSCDBOX10) - UK, 2015

This release contains the 09 Aug 1978 broadcast from The Agora, the 07 Jul 1978 broadcast from The Roxy Theatre, the 19 Sep 1978 broadcast from Capitol Theatre, the 30 Sep 1978 broadcast from Fox Theatre, and the 15 Dec 1978 broadcast from Winterland Ballroom.

Bruce Springsteen -- The Broadcast Collection 1975-1995

5xCD - Cult Legends (CL93154) - Europe, 2023

This release contains the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point, the 15 Dec 1978 broadcast from Winterland Ballroom, and the 14 Dec 1995 broadcast of the Columbia Records Radio Hour radio show.

Official Live Downloads

Prior to the High Hopes Tour, Bruce Springsteen's management announced a new service allowing fans to download concert recordings approximately 48 hours after each show. The initial plan required fans to purchase a special USB wristband, which could then be used to download a single High Hopes Tour show of the purchaser's choice and also functions as a regular reusable USB flash drive. The wristband, which could be purchased online or at the concert venue, was priced at $40. Following some negative response from fans over the high cost for the wristband, Springsteen's management subsequently announced a separate cheaper option for purchasing shows directly, without the need for the wristband. The shows were available for purchase and download via Live Nation, Bruce Springsteen's concert promoter, priced at $9.99 for MP3 and $14.99 for FLAC. Audio recordings for 31 of the 34 High Hopes Tour dates (all except 16 Feb 2014, 06 Apr 2014, and 03 May 2014) were released as such and they were available until 30 Jun 2014.

On 17 Nov 2014, Live.BruceSpringsteen.net was launched. It's a new addition to the official website, serving as an online store offering high-quality live concert recordings as well as high-resolution digital releases of Springsteen's album catalog. The download store is powered by Nugs.net in cooperation with Columbia Records. Audio recordings for 30 of the 34 High Hopes Tour dates (all except 16 Feb 2014, 06 Apr 2014, 03 May 2014, and 18 May 2014) were re-released on the new download store in multiple formats, including MP3, lossless CD-quality FLAC or ALAC, and 24-bit HD FLAC or ALAC or MQA, as well as audio CD-R with custom artwork. Nugs.net adopted the MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) format on 24 May 2017. From then on, all Bruce Springsteen live concert recordings, including the previously released ones, became also available in MQA.

Audio recordings for all 75 The River Tour 2016 dates were also released on Live.BruceSpringsteen.net in multiple formats, including MP3, lossless CD-quality FLAC or ALAC, and 24-bit HD FLAC or ALAC or MQA, as well as audio CD-R with custom artwork. Each show was generally released within a month after it took place.

Audio recordings for all 14 Summer '17 Tour dates were also released on Live.BruceSpringsteen.net in multiple formats, including MP3, lossless CD-quality FLAC or ALAC, and 24-bit HD FLAC or ALAC or MQA, as well as audio CD-R with custom artwork. Each show was generally released within a month after it took place.

Archival releases were periodically released on the same site, as part of the Bruce Springsteen Archive Series. These shows were also made available in multiple formats, including MP3, lossless FLAC or ALAC, 24-bit FLAC or ALAC or MQA, DSD, and audio CD-R. So far 90 shows (or sets of shows) were released from the ongoing series.

References

Some of the above info about the 15 Dec 1978 show is taken from Brucebase.

Available Versions

List of available versions of POINT BLANK on this website:

Page last updated: 20 Jan 2016