Photo Credit: Frank Stefanko
I want you to know that I am not alone.
"Here for the show?" the waitress asked at brunch yesterday.
Calene and I were dining at the St. Paul Hotel, a century-old fortress just across from Rice Park, where U.S. Grant once paid a visit. When we acknowledged that we had, in fact, flown in from California to watch Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform, she smiled as she refilled our coffee. "I could tell."
We came from all over, usually in pairs — husband and wife, two dudes in old concert shirts, party cougars — to see the Boss. It didn't use to be like this. Back during The River tour in 1981, you waited until Bruce came to your town. Setlists were a vague rumor, not something posted nightly on the Internet. Tickets were a few bucks. A scalper once tried to sell me a front row seat for $50 and I told him he was crazy. I was a college student. Five dollars was a fortune. Fifty was a regret waiting to happen.
Last night's show was ridiculously amazing. Bruce is fit enough to bare his chest during the encore. The E Street Band is tight, with a talent and connection showing their half-century as a unit. I'm not here to compare them with any band, anywhere — because there is none. Seeing Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band live in concert is the best show you'll ever see. And yes, I'm including non-rock shows like Hamilton.
Calene and I paid a little more than fifty bucks for our seats. A look around the arena before the lights came down showed teenagers, young parents, and a whole lot of people my age who saw the band back when our lives were a lot of tomorrows instead of a lot of yesterdays (stole that one from a Bruce rap last night). The guy next to me, singing along to every word just like me, leaned over and yelled in my ear a few songs in, "When was the first time you saw him live?"
"August 21, 1981. LA Sports Arena. You?"
"Ames, Iowa, 1978. Darkness tour."
We both knew the code. No explanation needed. Instant brotherhood.
Over the years and literally hundreds of shows around the world, I've wondered more than once what draws the legions of faithful back, decade after decade. It's not just the live act. When you see grown men cry over the words to “Thunder Road,” there's something far more than just entertainment. For me, Springsteen has been a North Star since my teenage years. I can't explain it any other way. Whether life was hard or easy, there was always some line to some song that connected to the core of my being. Back when I was very alone and trying to find my way, there was Bruce. The hope in the guy winning the girl in “Thunder Road,” the defiance of “Badlands,” that promise in “Born to Run” ("someday, girl, I don't know when, we're gonna get to that place that we really want to go — and we'll walk in the sun"), and literally a hundred of other throwaway lines have carried me.
When my writing career needed a reminder to plumb the depths of my soul to find the right words, there was Bruce. And a look around the arena last night showed me that a very large percentage of the crowd had their own version of that relationship. We know the words. All of them. And when Bruce throws the mic our way, we sing them right back to him. And by "we," I mean almost the entire arena. There is a wonderful communal energy in being our own version of the E Street Choir.
I met Bruce one time before a 1981 show at the Rosemount Horizon in Chicago. I was with my friend Terry. We had driven down from Northern and were drinking Schlitz with some guys from Notre Dame. Showtime was hours away. A panel van parked next to us. Bruce got out and talked with us for fifteen minutes. It was so easy and casual that asking for an autograph would have been weird. And then he was gone. "See you after the show," he said, stepping into a side door of the arena. That scene was so ephemeral that I sometimes wonder if it happened at all (it did).
The subtle theme through last night's show was death. Lots of wistful words about ghosts, the death of friends, and preparing for the afterlife. It was sweet, not morbid. We all got the message and wiped away a tear, just as we've understood the code through so many other phases of life. Then it was back to the hotel, walking through a driving snow storm. I found myself wondering, as I'm sure so many of my fellow Springsteen travelers filling the hotels of downtown St. Paul were also wondering, when Calene and I might next get on a plane to see the E Street Band. They don't come to LA until December. That's a whole lot of months from now.