Last night Mr. Pants and I went to the Spectrum to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. There's a lot of tension that goes into going to a concert for me. I hate crowds, people, drunk people (except me), kids, screamers, etc etc etc... So when I go it has to be a band I LOVE. I love Bruce and he didn't disappoint last night. The band sounded great and they seemed to have a really good time playing.
The show was at the Spectrum and for you non locals - The Spectrum was built in 1967 and is being torn down this year. As I stood in line to pee (a line that stretched up the stairs and around the corner - there are 10 stalls in that ladies' room and like 15000 girls that have thimble size bladders who have been boozing all afternoon) I started to think about how many times I've stood there to pee over the years. I tried to think of all the concerts I've seen. And all I could remember is how much I adored Meatloaf. Really. The Dead, The Grateful Dead, Inxs, The Cure, Bob Seger, REM, Bruce, and it all comes down to Meatloaf, behind the stage with Adam. Jesus. In all fairness though, it was a great show.
The other thought that got me as I stood there listening to Bruce playing Born To Run in its entirety, of how many times I listened to that album as a kid thinking what my life would be like. It occurred to me that that guy standing next to me probably thought at one time that the town he grew up in was "a death trap, a suicide wrap" and thought "we've got to get out while we're young" or that girl standing next me probably identifies herself as that "barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a dodge drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain". For me, it's always been the melancholy that made me love Bruce. I've always felt that his music was live in the moment type stuff... and that moment wasn't a very happy place. When I was little I would sneak records from my brothers' room and pour over the lyrics while I listened to them. One of my favorites was Born to Run. I would read the lyrics and listen to the songs and think it was this older world I didn't quite get, but that I would some day. Some day, a boy saying "You ain't a beauty, but hey, you're alright" would make sense. As my Bruce love moved past Born to Run, I feel in love with his lyrics. The working class teenage and young adult world that the subjects of Springsteen's songs often came back to. I remember listening to The River over and over again, and thinking how sad it seemed that just because he knocked up some girl he had to give away everything, and how they both pretended it didn't matter. I loved the bittersweet edge to his music. The first time I heard Jersey Girl (which is actually a Tom Waits song) and thought well, who else but Bruce could call the kid a brat and tell his girl to fix her self up so they could go to the shore. Seriously. Imagine any boy saying these things to you. Would you put up with it? Really?!
But that's the beauty of Bruce Springsteen music. No one is completely the trapped working class hero, or the lonely young girl willing to settle, but romantically we see ourselves as those things. We identify a piece of ourselves with those lyrics. Or at least I do. Let's face it, Bruce has made himself a very wealthy man pandering to those folks. And while he's getting a little long in the tooth (The Boss is 60), he is as energetic as I've ever seen him. The crowd on the other hand was amazingly diverse.
I expected people in their 40s and 50s and there were a lot of them. There were also a lot of people my age and younger, but I was truly shocked at how young. I girl who couldn't have been older than 11 had a sign asking if she could sing. I guess I should back up, Bruce has been doing this thing lately where he goes around collecting the signs the audience members have and playing some of the requests. The best one at the Philly show I was at was the cover of the AARP magazine with him on the cover (the request was for Lil bit o' soul). Occasionally Bruce will play something that is a cover and once or twice something the band has never played before (I think it was Boston this year, someone had a sign for I Want To Be Sedated and he said that he thought they were trying to stump the band. After a conference with Stevie and Nils they got it together). Back to the little girl...Bruce brought her on stage and she sang Waitin' On A Sunny Day, after which he planted a kiss on her and put her back with her folks. During Dancin' in the Dark he brought another young girl up and they danced together. It was a really family feel.
I'm going back Tuesday I think to hear Born in the USA in it's full. Darlington County is my favorite Bruce song. I can't explain why. So hopefully I will have a less long winded entry after the fact.
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