BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN TO RELEASE DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN BOX SET IN 2010

Tomorrow night, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band wrap up about three years of on-and-off touring with a concert in Buffalo, New York, where they will be playing Bruce's debut album, 1973's Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey, start to finish, for the first time ever. I am so bummed that I won't be there, I love that album.

Springsteen's manager Jon Landau just did an interview with the magazine he used to write for, Rolling Stone, and talked about Bruce's plans for 2010. First off, he's going to have a live DVD from the current Working On A Dream tour. I have no idea how they will boil that down to a DVD, given all the requests they did, one off covers, and full album performances.

Also, he's going to put out an expanded box set version of his 1978 classic, Darkness On The Edge Of Town. Like the Born To Run box set that came out a few years back, it will have the full album remastered (other than Born To Run, Bruce hasn't remastered any of his albums), a DVD with a live concert from the era (hopefully it will be available on CD or MP3 as well), and a documentary about the making of, and the impact of, the album. The Born To Run doc was awesome, I hope this one is as good.

No word on any new albums, but he's put out five new records in the past eight years, which is a pretty great pace. Still, he seems to be on a creative roll, it wouldn't suprise me to see a new album in 2010.

THE LATEST IN THE SPRINGSTEEN TICKET WARS

A few weeks ago, The Newark Star-Ledger and The New York Post (the latter always anxious to swift-boat Bruce Springsteen) wrote stories claiming that the reason that fans couldn't get good tickets to his recent New Jersey shows was that Bruce and his management held them for their fans, family, friends, etc. Which was not, exactly, what Springsteen and his management called foul over Ticketmaster: I think their main beef was that Tickemaster.com was rerouting fans to their scalping site even before tickets were sold out for Bruce's recent NJ shows. And that other, non-Ticketmaster affiliated sites were selling tickets before they even went on sale.

I was going to report on the Star-Ledger's report, but I figured I'd wait a few days for a response from Bruce's camp, and that response came today via manager Jon Landau. Read it at Bruce's website. Yes it sucks when you can't get great tickets for a show, and it sucks when you know that "insiders" have gotten those great tickets. But you've got to expect that when Bruce plays Jersey, there's going to be a lot of friends and family that are going to get hooked up, that's just the way it is. And even though tickets for the Giants Stadium shows didn't go on sale until after the Izod Center shows, I think every fan knew that he'd be playing the Stadium this summer (he is, in fact, playing five nights).