Record Stores Besieged for ‘Live’ Recordings : Springsteen Album Causes Hit Parade

Record stores across the country were besieged today with Bruce Springsteen fans snatching up copies of “Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985” at a pace that could make it the best-selling album in history.

The five-album $30 package went on sale in about 2,500 stores with about 1.7 million copies trucked to stores--the largest initial shipment ever.

Springsteen’s last album, “Born in the USA,” sold 17 million copies, Columbia Records’ all-time best seller. The best-selling album ever is Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” a 35-million seller for CBS.

In many areas demand for the new Springsteen package, his first live album, was unprecedented, with dozens of people in line waiting for stores to open. Sales were hottest in New Jersey, home state for the blue-collar rocker.

Maureen O’Hagen, a clerk at Cheap Thrills Records in downtown New Brunswick, N.J., said over the din of clattering cash registers that demand was “gigantic. There’s like 75 people in line.”

“We had 35 to 50 people outside the door before we even opened,” said Robin Allen of Peaches Records in Richmond, Va.

In San Francisco, Tower Records manager Robert Olson said there were 30 people lined up to buy the album by 8:30 a.m.

At a Strawberries Records outlet in the Boston area, a clerk said the store had just opened and it was a “madhouse.”

“It’s the real truth, he’s not lying,” said novelist Stephen King, who was in line to buy the release at another Boston record store.

Tower Records in New York made the unusual decision to open its doors an hour early when assistant manager Kenny Altman saw 30 people gathered outside by 7 a.m.

“Everybody’s excited. We’ve been running three registers since 8 a.m. and they haven’t stopped yet. It’s everything we expected,” he said. “They’re just buying it and calling in sick to work and going home and playing it.”