I went to see Bruce Springsteen for the 22nd time last year. Sounds like a lot until you realize that’s spread over 48 years. The first time in California I was 19.
That list includes the time Andrew Lustig and I had our elbows on the stage in Charlotte in 2002 and we touched him as he slid by with his guitar. It includes his 1996 solo act at Ovens Auditorium with Andrew and Lucy on the final night of the “Ghost of Tom Joad” tour and the last thing we four did together. I drove to Atlanta by myself to see the first night of his 2012 tour and back in time to sleep a little then drive up to Greensboro for the second show the next night. Not to mention the $750 ticket to Springsteen on Broadway in 2018.
So what’s the deal? Why have I seen him even more than Paul McCartney (15) and Neil Young (10)? I’m not a real devotee, like Andrew with his 75+ shows or Michael Waldman who was there in Philly in the early days and has seen 220+ “Bruce shows.”
But I have been a returning customer for half a century.
Inspiration, communion, and the possibility of redemption
His value proposition is inspiration, communion, and the possibility of redemption. The crowd is older, like me, polite, and here for the lyrics, not to go dancing (altho’ we all jump up for “Twist and Shout” and “Dancing in the Dark” during the encore.) Like church, we go in skeptical and wondering if we will find what we once saw for ourselves. Invariably, there is a verse from the Book of Bruce whose glory reveals itself newly, as with this one from “No Surrender”:
Because we made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat baby no surrender
It was Melinda’s fifth time seeing Springsteen, but the first in fifteen years! I was nervous about her liking it, the crush at Camden Yards, whether she could make out the words. Getting upgraded to first class to BWI set the tone, and the whole evening went smoothly, especially when the guys in front of us stayed seated for the whole show! We were on the second row, and so we could see every song of the 3-hour show without having to stand up, unless we wanted to! Melinda had a fabulous time and was posting about it all evening. And that turned out to be the miracle. Probably my last Bruce show, and we shared it, just like we did when we were in “the pit” together at the front of the stage in 2008. But it wasn’t an endurance test like then. It was elevating, civilized.
Yes, the wild creativity and improvisation (and long stories leading into the songs) have mostly disappeared from his live act. But the indelible memories remain, like when he played “Devil with the Blue Dress” standing on top of a stack of speakers with all the house lights up as it approached 1 a.m. at Oakland Coliseum back in 1980, and then asked “Are you tired yet?” And we roared NO! and he played on…
And the SONGS remain.
One soft infested summer me and Terry became friends, trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in; catching rides to the outskirts, tying faith between our teeth, sleeping in that old abandoned beach house, getting wasted in the heat, and hiding on the Backstreets…with a love so hard and filled with defeat.
Verses like that one have haunted me for fifty years. His stories give me a world to inhabit for a while, places to travel in my mind, crusades to fight, history to witness.
Nobody talks about the amazing concert I attended in sub-freezing temperatures at the Lincoln Memorial in January 2009 for Obama’s inauguration. 400,000 people attended, and Bruce opened it with an acoustic rendition of “The Rising” (about 9/11) and closed it after Obama spoke by singing “This Land is Your Land” with Pete Seeger. It was moving and I was cold, and since I’d seen Bruce a lot, I mainly remember it was the first time I’d seen Beyoncé, and Seeger, likewise for Garth Brooks and Sheryl Crow and Shakira and Mary J. Blige. Oh yeah, James Taylor and Stevie Wonder were there, too. Wow.
Seeing Bruce again brings those memories back stronger, and makes me remember who I am.
Still at the end of every hard earned day
People find some reason to believe.