I have post-Springsteen syndrome. My throat is sore, my legs ache. I’m fatigued, but have the remnants of euphoria floating around in my head. Last night, I saw Bruce Springsteen at the LA Sports Arena. Oh yeah. He proved it all night.
In the universe of Big Bruce Fans, I’m probably about a six or seven out of a ten. I don’t have all his albums: I skipped a couple of the folksy ones. Sorry, but fiddles bore me. I’ve seen him five times on the West Coast and ten times in the Deep South. There are Big Bruce Fans who would scoff at that meager amount; they are the ones who own every breath he ever recorded and who have seen him countless times, stretching back to the Stone Pony and the Main Point, when Clarence the Sax man lined up the women behind the stage and let them gratify him. There are bigger Bruce fans, with a better Bruce history. But, nonetheless, I’m one of the faithful.
Last night, in every song I sang almost every word. I forgot the words to a lot of the older ones. I’d sing a line, then miss a line. I danced, though. We all danced. Those that didn’t dance stood dumbstruck, like they were watching an opera where lightning and thunder were the actors. The E Street Band was tight, the show short (short for Bruce) and the songs fast paced. They didn’t slow down much. My pal Robby turned to me after the show and said, “That’s the best bar band I’ve ever seen.” The other 17,000 of us in the arena would agree.
I went to the show with two of my best friends: nearly life-long best friends, as I’ve known them both for over thirty years. Not that we are old. Last night, we were teenagers again. AC and I started loving Bruce in the seventies. In fact, I turned him on to Bruce, in much the same way someone would turn a pal onto a drug. “Listen to this,” I said to him in ancient times, in a hushed tone. I pushed the button on my 1976 Dodge Charger’s eight track. "Born to Run" started. “This is the best thing you’ll ever hear,” I promised. "You can't go back after hearing this," I warned. All these years later, AC is still a junkie. Last night, he and I sang every word of “Badlands,” “She’s the One,” and we were so euphoric we nearly had to be carried out on stretchers during “Born to Run.” Jesus Christ himself could have risen from the dead and stood in front of us and we would have told him to move out of our way because he was blocking our view of Bruce.
Robby, the crafty one of the bunch, smuggled in a camera and took photos all night. He memorialized one of the highlights of our lives thus far, and I bet, for years to come. Then, he tried in vain to get us backstage, working his LA trickster magic. At first, we were disappointed, or at least, I was, but euphoria is funny. It tramples disappointment. Two seconds later, we were reliving the show, recalling the set list, and gushing over the rousing encore.
I first saw Bruce perform in Jackson, Mississippi. I was on the floor, about halfway back in the Jackson Coliseum. I could see Bruce, this wiry figure in the distance on the stage, but more so, I could hear him. The Coliseum had bad sound, and the band sounded like they were playing in our high school gymnasium. But they didn’t act like it. I remember thinking I’d just seen Rock and Roll live up to its full potential, and the thing is, I was even evolved enough as a human to know that Rock and Roll had potential. I was fifteen, but I saw my life stretch out in front of me, and I knew it would take me out of Mississippi. When I left home after college and moved to San Francisco, I should have told my weeping mother that she had only Bruce Springsteen to blame. He put that seed in my head back in 1975, ten years earlier, when I heard him sing “Born to Run” that night in Jackson. Bruce Springsteen broke my mother’s heart and she probably never even had learned his name.
Every time I saw Bruce after that, he changed my life—never in as grand away as he did the first time, but in small ways. For a week, I’d be happy. You couldn’t rattle me. I would commit to some small life project, and stick with it. Most of the short stories I’ve written were inspired by his music in some way, even if they had nothing to do with any particular song. After I saw him the last time in Vegas on “The Rising” tour, I committed to getting my book published, one way or the other, and I did.
He inspires and he instills joy at the same time. He succeeds where the self-help gurus fail. Just as he was hyped in 1975, Bruce is still a Rock and Roll Jesus, except he actually delivers “The Promised Land” even if it is just for two hours and fifteen minutes, the length of last night’s show. He is my Rock and Roll deity, and today, tonight, tomorrow, for a few days from now, that’s all I need.
Even as I write this, my toes are still tapping.
