Most Bruce Springsteen fans can point to the different moments in his career that led to him becoming an artist for the ages. One underrated milestone was a pair of concerts held in 1979 that were much shorter than his usual marathon affairs.
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Those shows were the so-called No Nukes benefit concerts, staged at Madison Square Garden in New York City to call attention to the dangers of nuclear power. It was there Springsteen largely upstaged an impressive chunk of classic rock stars with his invigorating performances alongside the E Street Band.
Bruce Gets Involved … Sort Of
In March 1979, a partial meltdown occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. Several West Coast musicians who had already been active in protesting the proliferation of nuclear energy formed the group MUSE, short for Musicians United for Safe Energy. One of their first ideas was to schedule a series of five concerts in New York City at Madison Square Garden in September 1979 to promote their cause.
The idea was to invite a wide range of musicians from all corners, although it turned out to be a mostly West Coast assemblage when all was said and done. But the organizers did corral Bruce Springsteen to act as the headline act for two of the shows. Considering Springsteen’s clout on the East Coast, it was a huge get. It was also a somewhat surprising one.
We now know Bruce Springsteen as a musician unafraid to speak his mind or throw his weight behind political issues. But at the time, none of that was evident, as he was far more inclined to play his music and stay out of anything even the least bit polarizing. He gave no statement at the time as to why he accepted the invitation to perform, nor did he step out and give his views on the issue leading up to the shows.
Trust Us … They’re Not Booing
At the time of the shows, Springsteen was readying the album that would become The River (although he would subsequently tear his initial single-album idea apart and write and record a bunch more to make it a double LP). With the E Street Band in tow, he settled in to perform one-hour condensed versions of his marathon concerts on September 21 and September 22, 1977.
When you look at the list of artists who participated in the shows, you can quickly glean how Springsteen stood out. While many of the luminaries were content to sit still on the stage and play their music with little fanfare, Springsteen, of course, saw the stage as a playground and pulpit wrapped up in one. His showmanship and willingness to act alternately silly or solemn in order to bring out the best qualities of the music is what made him such a live draw.
The New York audiences knew all this very well. Many of the stars who were playing before him might not have been as aware. Several of the performers were allegedly freaked out when they heard what sounded like boos coming from the audience during their sets. Of course, they were just fans calling out for Bruuuuuuuce.
The Performances
Springsteen’s two nights weren’t all triumphant, at least not in terms of his on-stage demeanor. At one point during one of the shows, he tried to get security’s attention to remove a fan. When they didn’t respond, he actually went into the audience and led the girl in question off the stage, half-carrying her in the process. It turned out it was an ex-girlfriend who also worked as a photographer and had gone against her promise to take pictures during his set, but it still wasn’t the best look for The Boss.
That minor calamity aside, the music by Springsteen and the band played was electrifying. When he got serious, he was mesmerizing, including on one of his first performances of “The River.” And when he lightened things up, he was just as magnetic, as on the so-called “Detroit Medley,” which found he and the band churning through four rock and R&B classics in rapid, breathless succession.
The triple-album set collecting the best performances from the No Nukes shows largely came and went without much fanfare when released in November 1979. But Springsteen and company clearly knew how well they’d done. In 2021, Springsteen’s camp released The Legendary 1979 Nu Nukes Concerts as a live album and film, concentrating solely on The Boss’ performances and recalling those special nights when he showed some of the biggest names in the music world how it’s done.
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Photo by Richard E. Aaron/Redferns
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