The Agora, Cleveland 1978

The concert was sponsored by radio station WMMS as part of their 10th anniversary. WMMS announced the concert on air just 12 days before the show and free tickets were sent to listeners who dropped off a self-addressed stamped envelope at a local record store chain. Two tickets each were sent to 375 fans chosen at random from the thousands of requests that were received.[4]

The concert was broadcast live on WMMS and seven other Midwestern radio stations. The audio mix and recording were supervised by Springsteen's manager Jon Landau and audio engineer Jimmy Iovine.[5]

Engineer Toby Scott, who remastered the 2014 release, found tapes of the concert at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland where they were part of the Springsteen exhibit "Asbury Park to the Promised Land." Comparing the tapes to other copies of the concert, Scott thought this was the best version and potentially the original master tapes.[6] The exact source of the tapes is unclear as there were two audio feeds—one to Agency Recording studio, located on the second floor of the Agora building, and another to a production truck parked outside. The club's owner, Hank LoConti, had donated the Agora's 16-track master reels to the Western Reserve Historical Society in 2000.[7]

All tracks by Bruce Springsteen, except where noted.

• Bruce Springsteen – lead vocals, guitar, harmonica
• Roy Bittan – piano, background vocals
• Clarence Clemons – saxophone, percussion, background vocals, clarinet
• Danny Federici – organ, electronic glockenspiel, accordion
• Garry Tallent – bass guitar
• Steven Van Zandt – guitar, background vocals
• Max Weinberg – drums
• Plangent Processes – Archival analog to digital transfer