The long wait was over. A five year live Bruce jones was coming to an end. Now I just had to play my cards right and get in the pit. Springsteen has a daily lottery for the best seats in the house (the pit), to give every fan an equal chance to get up close.
They aren't really seats, but by now you should all understand the concept of "General Admission" You get a wristband a couple of hours before the show and make new friends in line. They pull a number and the line starts there. The next 350 people in line have won and will be in front of the stage, with enough extra room to dance around and act silly if they want to. The other 450 folks with floor seats make do on the arena floor behind them. Not that that's a bad thing, but up front is where the party is.
I had a master plan. I would get there close to two PM, when the first wristbands were given out. Zoomer would follow an hour or so later. Spread out like that, one of us was bound to luck out and land a band. it would have worked out well, too, if Zoomer's battery hadn't gone dead. Suffice it to say that neither one of our wristbands got close enough to the lucky number to grant admission to the coveted pit. Ah, well. It is what it is. We were early enough to hit a few pre concert soiree's in the neighborhood, so it's all good as far as I'm concerned.
We had heard at one place or other that Bruce's plane was late, so we ambled onto the Rose Garden floor around 8:20. Who should we run into at the sound mixing board? My old buddy Terry Z. Seems he went to high school with one of the light techs and had a pit wristband and everything. He was sitting behind the console, answering fan questions like he worked there. A handy trick with a paperclip and suddenly, we had the aforementioned pit access. Score!
Finally, the lights went down and Bruce shouts from offstage somewhere, "What I want to know , is there anybody ALIVE out there tonight?". With a calliope playing "The Man On The Flying Trapeze", the E Street Band strolled out from backstage and waved hello. The noise in the Garden was jackhammer loud. It doubled when the boss himself strutted out from the dark. It tripled when the band kicked into the first notes of "Night". Right off the bat, Clarence Clemons, the Big Man, brought the funk with a tight solo mid song. But it didn't let up there. "Radio Nowhere" followed (the night leaned heavily on the new album, "Magic"). Bruce really started sweating next with an emotional rendition of "Lonesome Day" from 2002's "The Rising". Somehow you felt the pain, but danced anyway. Steve Van Zandt (Little Steven, Miami Steve, Silvio Dante, call him whatever you want, the boy can play) had a wicked guitar solo duel with Brice on "Gypsy Biker", which I declared a draw.
Bruce's between song banter was generic for the most part, referring to his wife's absence "We've got three teenagers and the fort needs guarding." He got political for a moment, introducing "Magic" by saying we were celebrating the end of eight years of magic tricks. But the night was all about the music, and no one reads an audience's wants better then Springsteen. To borrow a football term, he "Audiblized" a great deal of the set, directing traffic like the pro he is. "Stevie, grab the acoustic guitar. We;re doing "Reason (To Believe)".
A guy off to the side had written 4-YOU on his ticket in sharpie marker. Bruce accommodated his Cheap sign,(we treat em all the same), placing it between "Promised Land" and the classic story, "Lost In The Flood". What a powerful trifecta of songs.
Throughout the night, The Mighty Max Weinberg's ferocious drumming kept the band focused (like they needed help) and driven. Each member shone at times, with Nils Lofgren taking lead several times, practically owning "The Rising", among others.
As I said, they focused on songs from "Magic" Two that worked really well for me, live, were the haunting "Devil's Arcade" and, surprisingly, "Long Walk Home". This song translated into an emotional, gut wrenching sing along that the entire Rose Garden crowd participated in.
Bruce pulled a sign out of the pit, a tremendous replica of an Oregon license plate that read JNGLND.
Turing it towards the band, they switched instruments on another "audible" and ripped into one of the best renditions of "Jungleland" I have ever witnessed. Clarence went into half note mode at the end of his solo, but the band picked it up and finished up with gusto. The veins in Bruce's neck were close to bursting as he belted out the final notes. I had tears streaming down my cheeks, it was that powerful. If music is life, then live music is living well!
It was a great, half hour long encore. "Girls In Their Summer Clothes", "Jungleland", "Born To Run", "Dancing In The Dark" and finishing off with "American Land". Bruce changed the words from "Germans and Jews" to "Lesbians and Jews" as a nod to several ladies in the pit wearing tee shirts that read "LESBIANS SPRINGSTEEN".
The only way I knew about him changing these words was a teleprompter readout on the big screens.
I was hoarse from singing along and screaming all night. But then the house lights came up and it was over. Part of me was disappointed. he didn't play "Trapped", "Meeting Across The River" and a hundred others I had on my wish list. So what? I got what I had waited five long years for. Two and a half hours of Bruce and the band. They had fun, we had fun. We laughed, we cried, we screamed at the top of our lungs. We made new friends and memories to last till next tour. We don't get Bruce often enough to gripe about anything. We got what we wanted and then some.
On a side note, in a previous post I had made reference to striking similarities between Bruce and Steve Earle. I must qualify those remarks in retrospect. Steve Earle and Bruce are, in fact, two different people. Hours of research has revealed that they have indeed appeared in public together. In the interest of truth in journalism, I proffer the following evidence for your perusal. It was an honest mistake. I will endeavor to be more accurate in the future. There is no spellcheck for my memory, and for that, I apologize.
Rock On Through The Fog (for two and a half hours on a Friday night)
A.J. Crandall
Dave Scott adds this:
There are certain moments when time stands still and rock and roll becomes something bigger than the sum of it's parts. Here is Bruce Springsteen joined by Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine with a solo that literally brought tears to my eyes.
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