The Promise: The Making of Springsteen’s “Darkness” in LA supports bicycling

This weekend, The Promise: The Making of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” a documentary film by Thom Zimny, will be shown around LA with 50% of ticket sales going to bicycle education and advocacy. Just purchase your ticket at the door or online and 50% of all sales will benefit the only County-wide bicycle advocacy nonprofit that works to make LA County a more bike-able place: LACBC!

And you should go see it! And not just because it is a good cause, near and dear to this Art Predator’s heart!

You see, last November 2010, Bruce Springsteen released Darkness on the Edge of Town a 5 cd box set that includes 2 cds of extra material that were written back then and never released–or material given away like the Patti Smith success “Because The Night.”

In this Bruce Springsteen obsessed household (and blog!), it was a red letter day–marked on the calendar and with a daily countdown with as much fanfare as if it was opening day for the baseball season!

Why? Because this is a box set like no other–especially for Springsteen fans! And a huge reason is the documentary film,  The Promise: The Making of “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”

The Promise: The Making of “Darkness on the Edge of Town”  offers a concert film, unreleased material, a documentary and more related to making of an album that was never released until now–the title comes from one of the songs from these sessions. People who heard it on bootleg or in concert wondered why it was never relesead. Most people never even heard it because he didn’t play it a lot.

The film shows his struggles in making Darkness on the Edge of Town (released in 1978); he didn’t want to let these songs go, to release them. There was so much extra material that some of it ended up on The River. For comparison, for Born to Run, they recorded for 18 months–it took almost two years to see daylight.

Why? Our theory, supported by years of Bruce research, is that as an artist Bruce has a theme, something he’s trying to get across in an album and he struggles with choosing what exactly to put on an album. Or the material that just doesn’t fit gets set aside until it’s time–or someone makes it happen.

Or in this case, the discovery and recovery of all of this incredible footage combined with the success of the Born To Run box set. When they found all this old footage from the recording sessions, it made sense to finally do something with it.

While I am sure people with he box set enjoy watching it their home TVs and stereos, few have seen it in a theater.

For LA Springsteen fans, you’re not going to want to miss the opportunity to see The Promise: The Making of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” live and with an audience of fellow fans.

Plus it’s for a good cause!

Screening Dates for The Promise in LA

Thursday, April 28        7:30 PM            Playhouse 7 – Pasadena
Saturday, April 30         11:00 AM         Monica 4-plex – Santa Monica
Sunday, May 1                 11:00 AM         Monica 4-plex – Santa Monica
Monday, May 2               7:30 PM            Sunset 5 – West Hollywood

Just purchase your ticket at the door or online and 50% of all sales will benefit the only County-wide bicycle advocacy nonprofit that works to make LA County a more bike-able place: LACBC!