Last night Jeff took me to see Bruce Springsteen at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, Bruce’s home state. Jeff is a major fan, this was about his 7th Springsteen concert and he has plans to go to more later this summer. He and Kelly even have a cat named Boss. Who wants to bet that their firstborn male child will be named either Bruce or Clarence?

Jeff took the train up from DC to Penn Station where I met him. We then grabbed something quick to eat at Port Authority, bought our tickets and took the bus over to Giants Stadium. It had started to rain. After we checked Jeff’s backpack in, we made our way to our seats. They were waaay off to the right of the stage. We could barely even see the stage. We could sort of see a big video screen, so as we told ourselves that the seats were ok and that they were good because we would be protected from the rain, I snapped this photo of our view:

Springsteen Concert Stadium Seats, East Rutherford, NJ

At the same time, a man from admissions approached us. I was so afraid I was going to get busted for having a camera at the concert, but what he said to us and 2 other people next to us was that when our seating was sold they didn’t realize how the stage was going to be set up and that the view would be so bad, so we could go sit on the floor in the center, in front of the sound and lighting booth. The only drawback would be if it kept on raining that we would be in the rain and that we wouldn’t be able to go back up in the stadium to our old seats. Without much hesitation we all exchanged our tickets for a floor ticket and headed down. I had a brief thought while walking down and out of the stadium that the admissions man may have been a phony and that we had just turned in our valid ticket without really checking any credentials. It just seemed too good to be true. But it was true. We made our way down to the floor and our seats were awesome. Here was our view:

Springsteen Concert Floor Seats, East Rutherford, NJ

By the time Bruce came out, 1 hour late, which Jeff said is normal, it was pouring outside and we were beginning to wonder if we’d made the right decision. The first song was appropriately “Who’ll Stop the Rain”. After a few more songs, I almost forgot about the rain. I was soaked but all my attention was on the stage. When the lightening and thunder started, Bruce stepped out to the front of the stage, into the rain, and informed us that it really wasn’t that bad. “Just enough to cool you off”, he said. Easy for him to say…. Shortly after, the rain stopped.

I am admittedly not a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. I like some of his older songs and I appreciate his talent. I realize he’s a legend and that he’s had a lot of influence. I respect his work. Let me just say that the show was amazing. Bruce is so animated in his singing, so goofy.. running around the stage, sliding on his knees, hanging off the microphone stand, jumping up on the piano… and such a smart ass inbetween songs sometimes. He’s like 50something years old and still is SO rock ‘n roll. And the E Street Band…. I never knew there were 9 members.. such talent, playing everything from a violin to a saxophone to a guitar.

Walking to bus to take us back to NY, Jeff and I were talking about our first memories of Springsteen. I can clearly remember seeing the Born in the USA video at our house on Pine Street in New London. And I remember my Aunt Paula walking into the living room and saying how attractive she thought he was.. but I was so young.. I was just like “huh? whatever!”. I also remember seeing the Dancing in the Dark video where an unknown Courteney Cox got pulled up onto the stage and did that lame-o dance with Bruce.

Anyway.. if you ever get a chance to see this concert you should go.. especially if it’s in Jersey where he’s singing to a crowd of loyal fans living the life portrayed in his songs. Fabulous.

I’ll leave you with this - My favorite Springsteen song was played last, the last song of the second encore, and here are some of my favorite lyrics from it:

I get up in the evening
and I ain’t got nothing to say
I come home in the morning
I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain’t nothing but tired
Man I’m just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

You can’t start a fire
You can’t start a fire without a spark
This gun’s for hire
even if we’re just dancing in the dark