Bruce Springsteen launches concert download site

Photo (C) John Minchillo/Invision/AP File

Bruce Springsteen has launched his official concert download site, coinciding with the release of his first eight studio albums in remastered editions.

Shortly before the start of his most recent High Hopes Tour, Springsteen announced that soundboard mixes of each show would be made available to download in high quality MP3 or FLAC file formats after each gig. Those downloads were then taken down at the end of June.

But now the new site – live.brucespringteen.net – is up and running, and also offering shows in high-resolution 24 bit and CD formats.

The idea of concert downloads was first mooted to Springsteen’s management five years ago by Brad Serling, founder and CEO of nugs.net. The idea was rebuffed at the time, but has now taken flight. Serling says the difference was that Springsteen actively took an interest in the project this time around:

“It was Bruce looking at YouTube and seeing fan-generated content from his recent shows, as well as archival stuff,” he told the Backstreets website. “And he was like, ‘We can do better than this. We own the masters!’ What’s great is, he wasn’t saying, ‘F— those guys. Take that stuff down. Screw YouTube.’ It was, ‘If this is happening, we should be doing it officially.’”

Whilst not giving away any locations or dates, Serling promised that many more of Springsteen’s live sows will be made available for download in the near future, with a shortlist of 30 already picked out.