If you've been channel surfing during the PBS pledge week you may have stumbled across the E Street Band at the Hammersmith Odeon, London '75. It was an amazing show, full of all the wildness, the innocence and the E Street Shuffle that a collection of gifted and unlikely South Jersey boys could muster. The two CD set captures all the musical drama and energy of that night with a freshness and timeless urgency. The band seems ready to "leap tall buildings with a single bound" from the opening chord of the show until their breathless and perspiring closer more than two hours later. Bruce himself is a mixture of paradoxically callow sophistication. When he sings, "I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk," he evokes the spirits of Dylan, Guthrie and Tom Waits in their most mystical incarnation. He's alone, a forlorn beat poet, reciting over the carnival organ that defined the Asbury Park desolation. England must have left stunned.

This record illustrates the remarkable Americanness of this music. The writing, the feel, the heart of the band, is uniquely and distinctly of its time and place. The transcendence comes through the immediacy and honesty of everything they play. The second line groove of "She's The One" is all New Orleans backwater, channeled through Buddy Holly and Bo Diddley. Max was one of the hardest hitting drummers in rock in those days. He's not subtle. He's not cool. He's driving a Hemi Roadrunner down a "dust beach road" and he pops those back beats like Ginger Baker; tireless and dangerous. Clarence Clemens was the E Street King Curtis, playing the tenor sax leads to Miami Steve's guitar like Duane to Eric. The effect conspires to be transportive in time and place. They git it in your soul, and twist.

That year, 1975, was the year these guys celebrated their third record, Born To Run. Greetings From Asbury Park, with its greeting card cover and Stone Pony history, and The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle were released as a one-two punch, one that had knocked the American critics for a loop. By the time the public had come up to speed, Bruce Springsteen had been hailed as the next Dylan, and the band as the next Beatles - the kiss of death to a ragged assemblage of James Dean and Dean Moriarty characters. They went to London with the weight of pop music's future weighing on their shoulders, and just rock and rolled it off.

Bruce Springsteen's writing has evolved, developed and grown; but his gift was pretty fully formed in '72. Clearly informed by both Carl Sandberg and Carl Perkins, Bruce was, and is, both a wry commentator on society, and a poet with deep insight into the human condition. He creates apt but unlikely images and reaches deep into the psyche of his generation. "4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" epitomizes this gift. Springsteen reaches right into your deepest longings, and shines that silky moonbeam right on them. He captures the surreal reality of his generation.

By Dave Morgan