For most of last year, Bruce Springsteen released archival concerts about once every month and a half.  That pace has slowed this year.  Perhaps this is due to Springsteen and the E Street Band's current The River tour, where each new show is soon ready for purchase shortly after its performance.  But a new archival concert has just become available as we hit nearly the halfway point of 2016.

This release, from November 16 and 17, 1990 and is a slightly more low-key affair than some of the others in the archival series.  It features a solo Springsteen performing two acoustic shows in Los Angeles to benefit the Christic Institute, a now-defunct non-profit law firm.

These concerts occurred during a time when Springsteen's career was shifting.  He had disbanded the E Street Band after the conclusion of the Tunnel of Love Express tour and several other concerts and moved to California with his soon-to-be second (and current) wife Patti Scialfa.  Working primarily with studio musicians, Springsteen would release two solo albums on the same day in 1992:  Human Touch and Lucky Town.

The shows feature Springsteen concert perennials like "Thunder Road" and "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" together with material from other albums like Nebraska (which may be expected at an acoustic show).  Some songs were performed here before they would appear on albums, such as "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)" and "Soul Driver" from Human Touch and "Red-Headed Woman" which would not appear on an official Springsteen album until 1993's In Concert/MTV Unplugged live album.  Springsteen is also joined by special guests Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt for the last two songs of each set: a cover of Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" and a cover of the Jim Dickinson/Ry Cooder/John Hiatt song "Across the Borderline" which Willie Nelson would perform on his album of the same name in 1993.

The shows were recorded live with front-of-house mixing by Bruce Jackson .  They were sourced from 16 bit/44.1kHz DAT and mastered to DSD by Adam Ayan at Gateway Mastering.

The release will be offered in Direct Stream Digital or DSD ($44.95) - a format with 64 times the sampling rate of CD - as well as the usual options of MP3 ($12.95, 256 kbps), FLAC or Apple Lossless ($15.95), HD-Audio ($29.95, 24 bit/192 kHz, FLAC-HD or ALAC-HD) and CD-R ($26.00).  CDs are shipping now but those purchasing the CD sets have the option to pay $34.95 to obtain the MP3s immediately.

All previous ten volumes of The Bruce Springsteen Archive Series - plus the recent concerts from the River Tour and concerts from 2014 - are available at Springsteen's official live store for download and physical purchase.  You can also sample tracks at this link which you'll find just below!

Bruce Springsteen, The Christic Shows at the Shrine, Los Angeles, California, 1990 (Columbia/Nugs.net, 2016)

Set One - November 16

1. Brilliant Disguise
2. Darkness on the Edge of Town
3. Mansion on the Hill
4. Reason to Believe
5. Red Headed Woman
6. 57 Channels (And Nothin' On)
7. My Father's House
8. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
9. Atlantic City
10. Wild Billy's Circus Story
11. Nebraska
12. When The Lights Go Out
13. Thunder Road
14. My Hometown
15. Real World
16. Highway 61 Revisited
17. Across the Borderline

Set Two - November 17

1. Brilliant Disguise
2. Darkness on the Edge of Town
3. Mansion on the Hill
4. Reason to Believe
5. Red Headed Woman
6. 57 Channels (And Nothin' On)
7. The Wish
8. Tougher Than The Rest
9. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
10. Soul Driver
11. State Trooper
12. Nebraska
13. When The Lights Go Out
14. Thunder Road
15. My Hometown
16. Real World
17. Highway 61 Revisited
18. Across the Borderline