Bruce Springsteen Offers Free Download of 1980 Live Tracks

Apparently we've all been good this year. Santa's come a little early with a gift for Bruce Springsteen fans: a free download of almost an hour's worth of live tracks from a 1980 concert.

The previously unreleased 10 songs, which can be found on the Live Bruce Springsteen Website, come from a Nov. 5 show in Tempe in support of The River, which had come out just two weeks earlier. The tracks were recorded at the same performance that's captured on the video that's part of the new The Ties That Bind: The River Collection box but weren't included on the DVD.

The free MP3s feature live versions of mostly The River and Darkness on the Edge of Town songs, plus a searing take on Born to Run's epic "Backstreets." Many of the cuts -- including "Independence Day," "Racing in the Street," "Point Blank" and "Backstreets" -- run seven or eight minutes. The songs can also be purchased as higher-quality lossless downloads or as a CD, if the freebies' 256 kbps don't meet your ears' standards.

Springsteen has been pushing The Ties That Bind -- which gathers 52 songs from the sessions that eventually became the double-album The River -- with appearances on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live, and will hit the road next month with the E Street Band with a tour named after the 1980 LP. Think of this early Christmas gift as part of that promotional push as well as a valuable addition to the project.

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