“Springsteen on Broadway” will launch globally on Netflix on December 15, 2018, which is also the final night of Springsteen’s completely sold out 236-show run at Jujamcyn’s Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway. “Springsteen on Broadway” is a solo acoustic performance written and performed by Tony Award, Academy Award, and 20-time Grammy Award winner Bruce Springsteen. Based on his worldwide best-selling autobiography 'Born to Run,' “Springsteen on Broadway” is a unique evening with Bruce, his guitar, a piano, and his very personal stories. In addition, it features a special appearance by Patti Scialfa. The evening has received rave reviews in top media here and abroad.

“Springsteen on Broadway” is written by Bruce Springsteen, and directed and produced by Emmy Award-winner Thom Zimny ("Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Live in New York City (2001)"). In addition to Zimny, the film is being produced by the same team that produced “Springsteen on Broadway,” including Springsteen manager Jon Landau, Springsteen tour director George Travis, and Landau Management partner Barbara Carr.

Said Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer, Netflix: “We are thrilled to bring Bruce Springsteen -- a master storyteller, humanitarian and voice of the everyman -- to Netflix in this historic one man show. This groundbreaking experience defies the boundaries of theater, concerts and film and will give our global audience an intimate look at one of the biggest cultural icons of our time.”

Said Springsteen manager, Jon Landau: “The purpose of the film is to bring this incredibly intimate show to Bruce’s entire audience intact and complete. In addition to its many other virtues, Netflix has provided for a simultaneous worldwide release which is particularly important for our massive international audience. Ted Sarandos and the entire company’s support has been a perfect match for Bruce’s personal commitment to the filmed version of 'Springsteen on Broadway.'”

Bruce Springsteen's historic sold-out series of performances of his one man show “Springsteen On Broadway” began previews on October 3, 2017 and officially opened October 12. The show was extended three times after its initial eight-week run, and will close on Broadway on December 15, 2018, bringing the total number of performances to 236."

That's because Springsteen marshalled the power of radio that year. Each of these broadcasts had its own vibe, setlist, and geographic reach. Amplified thousands of times over by tape trading and its bête noire, bootlegging, they helped raise his profile in the U.S. and attract new fans overseas, too. 

Previous Springsteen concerts had gone out over the airwaves — one in 1975 originated from the same Sunset Strip nightclub — but this, the first '78 radio performance, has shock appeal like no other. Taking the stage, Springsteen asked for lights, apologized for a messy ticketing situation, then offered the biggest understatement of his career: we're gonna do some rock 'n' roll for you.

Historian Clinton Heylin wrote that Jon Landau wanted something big for Los Angeles. The timeline afforded plenty of opportunity: Springsteen played the second of two shows in Berkeley on July 1, rocked the Forum on July 5, and wasn't due in Phoenix until July 8. Camped out in Los Angeles, he mixed live recordings from Berkeley and conducted interviews for both radio and television. The seven-minute segment with Channel 7's J.J. Jackson included footage from both sets at the Forum and likely stands as the first TV news interview Springsteen ever granted.

The date at the Roxy came together quickly, though there was enough time for a mention to appear in the Los Angeles Times. With demand for tickets far outstripping supply, an FM broadcast was bound to register as a bona fide event. Paired with the TV interview, the tour's radio debut became a de facto unveiling of the personae and structure that carried Springsteen and the E Street Band at least through Born in the U.S.A., forged in the aftermath of alleged hype, litigation with his first manager, and the death of Elvis Presley.

Buddy Holly was very much alive that summer, in spirit anyway: Springsteen had taken in a showing of The Buddy Holly Story that week, jammed with the actor Gary Busey (who portrayed the young singer in the film), and at some point worked up a spot-on take of "Rave On" with the E Street Band, with which Holly had a hit in 1958. Debuted at the Roxy, it remains one of their more audacious and memorable starts: in an instant, they just took off, making good on the promise of rock 'n' roll, stated or otherwise. By the end of the first set, when Springsteen paired "Racing in the Street" with "Thunder Road," he'd hedged his bet on innocence, telling of a sign he'd seen in the desert West that read, "This is a land of peace, love, justice, and no mercy."

Springsteen and the E Street Band played 25 songs that night, nine of which, like "Rave On," were unreleased or previously unplayed, including the first public airings of "Point Blank" and "Independence Day." The entirety sounded monumental, yet it wasn't out of the ordinary for that tour, whether "Prove It All Night" with the instrumental beginning or a fiery "Adam Raised a Cain." And Springsteen invoked Presley in the second set: when tuning proved too lengthy a proposition, he dispatched the Esquire and summoned the King, delivering a knockout cover of "Heartbreak Hotel."

That was a moment where hard work paid off. Already steeped and practiced in music, Springsteen sounded equally adroit in the art of radio. Between songs, he essentially called on listeners to imagine what it was he was doing. The best example came early, when the band didn't fire at the beginning of "Spirit in the Night." Springsteen turned that miscue ("now wait a minute — see, when I do this… let me do it again… this is what's supposed to happen!") into a make-believe moment for everyone tuned in at home or in the car.

For most fans, today's release supplants tapes made from the KMET signal; Springsteen began the second set by instructing bootleggers to "roll your tapes!" They did just that, yielding titles like Hands Toward the Sky and Roxy Night; in 2013, the file-sharing era upgrade Out There in Radioland, sourced from first-generation quarter-inch reels recorded at 7½ inches-per-second, superseded most if not all cassette captures. Officially, Springsteen himself called on nine selections from this performance for his Live/1975-'85 retrospective, making it the single biggest source for the box set and its attendant B-sides.

This archival version coincides with the 40th anniversary of the broadcast and corrects many flaws, be it the occasional dropout, station ID, or the noise of telephone traffic as the sound traveled from the Roxy to KMET. It restores a notorious Live set edit, which excised the "Drive All Night"/"Sad Eyes" interlude in "Backstreets." Whether that served commercial, technical, or creative demands in 1986, it raised eyebrows and more than a few howls.

Fans invariably will compare The Roxy July 7, 1978 with the Live/1975-'85 set, one that Springsteen and his team of producers spent months assembling. Then, the Roxy material had to conform to a big '80s sound that framed the majority of the LPs' 40 tracks. Today, it only has to sound like we remember it: after 40 years of listening to what came over the air (or to recordings that arrived later) that's a heavy proposition, compounded by time and countless plays back. But if any set of music is up to that challenge, it's this one. - Jonathan Point reporting (Backstreets.com)