Senior editor John Hassan e-mailed this ESPYs music review back to associate editor E.J. Hradek, who clearly is not important enough to be invited to Vegas:

Since you are the resident Bruce Springsteen fan at ESPN The Magazine, I wanted to give you the full Clarence Clemons report from the ESPYs. (The Roger Clemens report is short: looks as bad in a tux as he does in pinstripes.)

As you know, our man Clarence took on a tough assignment. He led the house band, "Clarence Clemons and His Band of Faith." As we know, Clarence can't just produce incidental music, but that was his job last night. He and the band were great at rehearsal and even better during the show. Can't say as much about the fans, though. They pretty much ignored him. Light applause except when they were begged by the announcer 10 seconds before we came out of commercial breaks. Thanks to my high-powered magazine connections, I was way in the back of the house. I don't think the Big Man heard me clapping.

As for the music, it was mostly standard R&B stuff and bluesy riffs. He did his hit You're a Friend of Mine and that got a bit of a rise out of the crowd. He dug into Springsteen's song book for an instrumental take on a B-side from Born in the USA, From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come).

But the cool thing was his original work for the evening, which will have collectors scrambling when the word gets out. Before the show went live, the band was warming up the crowd. They started in on a fairly basic Stax/Volt-style song. After some solos, the singers started to chant "ESPY Breakdown". When they were finished, the song drew the usual smattering of applause. For the rest of the evening, the band played snippets of that song to lead in and out of segments.

Clarence wrote a song for the ESPYs! Now it was very similar to Henry Mancini's Oscar Breakdown. And it reminded me a bit of Marvin Hamlisch's Grammy Breakdown. But that doesn't matter. Springsteen may have a live album out soon, but he hasn't done a studio album with the E Street Band in many years. This is an important addition to the Springsteen/Related Artists catalog.

I just hope it's easier to track down than Max Weinberg's Concerto for Conan.