Because we wrote about it when it played at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, and because we'll be covering it in more depth when it's released on DVD next month as part of the big Darkness On The Edge Of Town box set, we won't have anything about The Promise: The Making Of Darkness On The Edge Of Town in TV Club either in advance of or after its airing on HBO tonight at 9 p.m. eastern. But we figured there are Bruce Springsteen fans out there who'd appreciate a reminder that it's coming on. According to us:
There are only a few fragments of concert footage in The Promise, and though director Thom Zinny has plenty of clips of Springsteen and The E-Street Band rehearsing and recording the songs for Darkness (including some that have never been released, and some that are radically different from their final versions), the clips are decidedly lo-fi and fragmented. So The Promise isn’t exactly The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Movie. But it’s still a treat for Springsteen fans, as Zinny talks to The Boss and his employees about the tumultuous Darkness sessions, which began with lawsuits from Springsteen’s fired manager and ended with Springsteen fighting to release a record that was much starker than the heavily orchestrated Born To Run. The movie also shows the two contradictory sides of Springsteen: the perfectionist who’d spend an entire day trying to figure out why Max Weinberg’s drums didn’t sound right, and the freewheeler who’d end each day of recording by pulling Miami Steve Van Zandt aside for an impromptu rehearsal of a dozen new song ideas he’d come up with overnight.
So there's something to look forward to. And here's a clip: