Reply to "Bootlegs then...Bootlegs now... Official Live Downloads???"

I agree on the importance of bootlegs for Bruce’s career. Prior to BITUSA, bootlegs and tape trading was how people learned about Bruce if they hadn’t gone to a show. There were a lot of people I turned on to Bruce by giving them a tape of a particular show. Also, the live broadcasts and the subsequent bootlegs, especially the five Darkness tour broadcasts, created a major increase in the number fans. Just the fact they went from small halls to arenas was due to the increase in fans due to the broadcasts and the bootlegs, not daily radio airplay and album sales.  

Nowadays, there isn’t the same sense of the importance of popular music in our culture due to a host of reasons too numerous to expound upon here. So the official live downloads/CDs are not being passed around as in the past though I suspect that there are people who download a show out of curiosity and discover that, yes, the assertions they’ve heard and read that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are the greatest live band in history are true and so they become a fan.