Born to Run: An Evening with Bruce Springsteen

Photographer's Note: This is NOT the photo of Bruce Springsteen I had been hoping and planning to post on this date. The tickets said NO CAMERAS and they seemed quite serious about it: they threatened to confiscate any illicit items. So my husband talked me out of sneaking my camera in. While I admit I did wish for my camera a few times, overall it was less of a distraction NOT to have it. Because I fully focused on the show. And later, when I was dancing like a crazy girl to "Dancing in the Dark," and I suddenly realized I was stomping my parka (which had a pocket I would have carried my camera in), I was even gladder not to have it. So I think it all worked out just fine in spite of my initial disappointment. If you want to take a look at Bruce Springsteen, go to YouTube, and search for the title of your favorite Springsteen song. Chances are you will find it, as well as many videos from the current Wrecking Ball tour. ENJOY! You're welcome!

I can't believe I've been here almost a whole year and this is the first I am telling you this. I am the biggest Bruce Springsteen fan that you may never meet. Or maybe second-biggest, if you count my brother. He's 22 months older than me, the only boy among my five siblings; and he's been a fan ever since I can remember.

Tickets for Bruce Springsteen's Wrecking Ball tour date at Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center (BJC) went on sale August 4, the day my husband and I took my mom to visit my father in the hospital after his heart surgery. (I wrote about that here.) I was so distracted by family matters that I didn't even know that Bruce was definitely coming to our area until several days later. As soon as I found out, I checked with my brother and his wife, and I ordered tickets online for my brother's family (himself, his wife, and his two sons, one of whom I've written about here) and myself. My husband couldn't go due to a work conflict.

My brother and his wife and my husband and I had the opportunity to see Bruce and the E Street Band on their reunion tour at the same venue 12 years ago, on February 28, 2000. (My oldest sister and I treated them to the tickets, as a birthday gift for my brother. I think we might have made one of his Big Life Dreams come true. If you ever get a chance to do this for someone you love, my advice is: Just Do It!) It was the best rock and roll concert I had ever seen. Clearly delighted to be back together after several solo efforts, they embraced each other, celebrated each other joyfully. They played for hours. We had seats about 13 rows from the stage. When Bruce stood on the piano and sang right to us, my heart filled almost to bursting.

With such a fantastic first experience, we looked forward to seeing Bruce and the E Streeters again. It had been far too long. November 1 seemed so far away when I bought the tickets back in August, but the time passed quickly. Earlier this week, some awful events took all of our minds off everything else: Hurricane Sandy roared through and devastated the East Coast. (We were lucky that we got off pretty easily in central Pennsylvania: read my own story here.) As the week passed and the weather started to improve, my thoughts began to turn to the concert. I was afraid that the night before the concert, I might not be able to sleep, like a little kid at Christmas. I worried I would wake every hour on the hour, looking at the clock: Is it here yet? Is it time?

And so finally the day of the concert came. It was overcast and drizzly and cold. I went to work, but I was distracted. At my second meeting of the day, I admit I got a very strange look in return when I announced to the librarian I was meeting with: "Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run!" So I put in my work day, grabbed a bite to eat, enjoyed a short visit to a favorite local department store, then parked on campus and caught a bus to the BJC.

I got off the bus and joined a long line of people waiting to get into the Jordan Center. The doors opened at 6:30 for the concert which was scheduled to start at 7:30. The line seemed almost a mile long, but it was moving pretty quickly. They asked us all to "open your bag" (those who had bags; I did not) as we went in, checking for contraband. (Look! For once, this girl has NO CAMERA!) I showed my ticket and walked in without any issue. Bruce is a big supporter of the local food banks, and there were people inside the gates with cans (thus the term "canning"), collecting donations for the local food bank. From there I went up to the section where our seats were, and my brother and his family waved me in. I am not sure I have ever seen such a diverse audience: old people, young people, people in wheel chairs, people of every shape and color. While our seats weren't quite as close as we'd had for the 2000 concert, video screens in front of us delivered clear views of the performers.

Ticketing glitches delayed the start of the concert. The lights would go up, the lights would dim; people cheered each time thinking something would happen! But it turned out it was just more people climbing ladders, messing with lights, setting out guitars. Just short of an hour after the expected start time, the first few bars of music started. We just about jumped out of our seats! BRUUUUUUUUCE!!! (If you are ever at a Springsteen concert and it seems like people are booing, it's not the case; they're just shouting out his name!)

Missing since we last saw them were Clarence Clemons the sax player and Danny Federici the organ and accordion player, both of whom have passed since 2000. And early in the program, Bruce explained that his wife, Patti (the red-headed "first lady of love"), was somewhere accompanying their daughter Jessica, a celebrated show horse jumping champion (who, by the way, according to Internet photos I've seen, much resembles her mother).

Seconds before the music started, I turned and asked my brother, "Now, do you remember the song they started the show with in 2000?" He didn't remember, so I told him: "Lion's Den," a reference to our home team, the Penn State Nittany Lions. The second song was "We Take Care of Our Own," the first song on this year's new album which came out in March, Wrecking Ball. (Notable sidebar: the album debuted at number 1 in 16 countries including the U.S. - and yes, I bought my copy the first day it came out! I highly recommend it. Every song on it is GOOD. But I digress.)

Wikipedia, by the way, provides some good information about the songs on this album, and here's a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_Ball_%28Bruce_Springsteen_album%29

There was a very nice brass section (including Jakie Clemons, big-haired nephew to the famed "Big Man" Clarence Clemons; yes, there is some resemblance), three back-up singers, and of course the main members of the E Street Band. Mighty Max Weinberg, on the drums, has always looked like the happiest man in show biz: thrilled to be there, thrilled to be playing the drums! Max is looking a little gray of hair these days. Yes, they all are looking a little older, and so are we.

They performed a nice mix of old songs, including "Born to Run" (my librarian friend would have finally understood my reference to "Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run!") and that MTV video classic, "Dancing in the Dark," as well as songs from the new CD. I got up out of my chair and boogied enthusiastically to both (hey, I'm an 80s girl after all), probably much to the chagrin of my two teen nephews. (They're lucky I didn't pull out my 80s big hair, my ultra-tight sprayed-on jeans, my leg warmers, and my lip gloss! Just sayin' . . . Thank heavens for small favors, boys!)

Concert-goers on the floor by the stage danced and held up signs, and Bruce admitted about half-way through that he was "a little bit sad tonight." And then he did a bunch of songs in honor of the Jersey Shore and the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Someone in the crowd had a sign that said JERSEY STRONG, and Bruce grabbed the sign and put it by the mike: the camera focused in on the sign and they dimmed the lights. I think we all wanted to cry. (It was no surprise to learn that Friday night, New Jersey's favorite son will be part of an all-star line-up for a benefit concert to be held at Rockefeller Center in NYC for the victims of Hurricane Sandy.)

"Sing it, Steve," Bruce often shouted. And Little Steven Van Zandt, Bruce's friend since childhood, was happy to oblige. They played guitars side by side; sang, side by side; smiled, enjoyed each other's company.

The revelation of the night may have been Jakie Clemons, the nephew of Clarence Clemons and new sax player for the band. They featured Jakie in some of the same sax solo riffs Clarence used to play. The crowd, so anxious to love him in his uncle's honor, went wild. A second, smaller stage had been set up in the middle of the concert floor, and Bruce frequently boogied down off the main stage and through the crowd and over to it. He pranced, he sang, he danced, he sweated, he doused his head with water to cool off. He was a madman of rock and roll. And he invited Jakie to join him in the spotlight. It was like the old days. But different.

They got to "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out," where Bruce sings "when the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band." They flashed a photo montage on the video screens: pictures of Clarence Clemons. We all cheered but we all wanted to cry. "The older you get, the more ghosts you carry with you," Bruce said at one point, as he launched into a song he had written about his home town of Asbury Park, on the Jersey shore: "My City of Ruins" (which he dedicated to the hurricane victims). He explained that the ghosts we carry are not just ghosts of the people who are no longer with us, but also the ghosts of places and things that we have loved that no longer exist. (I have a few such places; I bet you do too.) Bruce seemed older, sadder, wiser, more serious than the last time we saw him; but then again, the last time we saw him, a hurricane had not just devastated his beloved state's entire coast line!

Some touching moments with the crowd stood out. At one point, Bruce went back behind the stage and got a crate of some kind, and he put it down into the crowd in front of the stage. I wondered why, and then I finally understood, as we watched him pull a little boy up onto the stage and fluff up his hair. The crate was for the little boy to stand on because he was too short to see up onto the stage!

A bit later, Bruce pulled a young woman up onto stage who looked very sickly. She was wearing a pink outfit and pink slippers. He pulled her up onto stage and carried her gently in his arms, and they danced for a few minutes. She turned and gave us all a big, big smile. She was taken out shortly after that, after a moment of a lifetime.

When they played "Dancing in the Dark," several young ladies in front of the stage held up a sign that said, "Did you ever dance with a Penn State girl?" Bruce grabbed the sign, showed it to the camera, and grinned; then he invited about a half dozen of the young ladies up to dance. Oh how those coeds boogied! And I admit I boogied too! Yes, I boogied my heart out! Do you get many chances in life to dance to live Springsteen? And I mean really LIVE!? Like in the same room? Why yes, when you get a moment like that, you dance your heart out! I was a girl living my dream, and so I danced!

The band played until 11:45 or so, almost three and a half hours, concluding with the song "Shout!" ("You know you make me wanna SHOUT!") And so even as exhausted as we all were by then, we all sang along and we danced and we obligingly flung our hands in the air with joy! As all the band members disappeared down a set of stairs below the stage, Bruce was the last one out, dancing a little jig behind them. Moments later, the roadies started ripping up the stage, and the show was over. And so an evening with Bruce Springsteen comes to an end. This concludes the show, ladies and gentlemen!

It was a quick walk across campus and a short drive home for me; a longer drive for my brother and his family. As I drove home through the darkness, the sky cleared and the moon came out. An enchanting ending to an outstanding day!

Oh yeah, and I have just one more thing to add:

"Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run!"