Still like nothing else

This is my 1000th post to this blog, so I thought I'd use it to toss out a few disjointed thoughts from Monday night's Bruce Springsteen concert at Citizens Bank Park.

It was supposed to rain that evening and it had certainly rained plenty earlier that day, so we cam with all the appropriate rain gear plus a towel to dry our seats. I've got all this stuff pretty well wired from baseball games, where I bring both a poncho, which covers everything when seated, plus an umbrella, which allows me to read or use the phone or whatever. This is handy during rain delays because it means I don't have to get up and stand in the concourse. Sometimes the beer vendors even come by.

But we weren't allowed to bring umbrellas in, so ponchos only. And we were greeted by the large video screens telling us that we might have to evacuate the field in case of lightning (though not rain). I was not happy that the concert did not start until 45 minutes after the time on the ticket, because it wasn't raining and I was thinking I'd be annoyed if it started with 45 minutes left in the show. But it never did rain.

They were selling margaritas at some of the stands. Actually, they had bars set up in various places. I decided to go easy because it was a long way from the field seats to the bathrooms.

The show, of course, was amazing. I wondered if the sound lost a little bit of its power not being contained by a building, but the acoustics were far better than in any arena where I've seen him. I realized that it was 37 years ago, late in 1975, when I first saw him play at the Colgate University gym (I was attending Hamilton College at the time). I didn't really know much about him but my friends from the college radio station said I had to come see him. And so we did in a half-full gym. Born To Run had come out not too long before and just a few weeks prior he had famously been featured simultaneously on the covers of both Time and Newsweek magazines.

I remember the timing because when he sang Rosalita, where the usual lyrics go:

Tell him this is his last chance
To get his daughter in a fine romance
Because a record company, Rosie, just gave me a big advance

he substituted the line: Because I ain't no freak, I'm on the cover of Time and Newsweek.

Since then I've seen him maybe a dozen times, maybe more. Every show is different, but the story is always the same. The guy, to quote Jon Stewart, empties the tank every time he goes out there. He's 62 years old and looks more like 40, and he goes high energy nonstop for 3 1/2 hours in horrible heat and humidity (to the extent that instead of going offstage before the encore, he sat down, took off his boots one by one and poured about a cup of sweat out of each of them). I was there with my wife and daughter, a newbie, neither one a huge fan, but it's hard not to be won over by 35,000 people singing as one. And it's impossible to not be blown away by the guy's stage presence and his utter joy in music and performing.



So I sang, I clapped, I swayed, I cried, and I remembered how much I love a Bruce Springsteen concert. It never rained. And on the way out, my daughter remarked that they don't do concerts like that anymore. And all I could say was, nobody else ever did concerts like this.