Don't Even Try to Argue with Me: Bruce Springsteen is God

I have post-Springsteen depression. It’s that feeling that follows an amazing Bruce Springsteen concert. Which is to say, it happens after almost every Springsteen show.

I guess you could say I’m a fan. And have been since, oh, Greetings from Asbury Park. Which came out 1973. When I was still very, very young.

It isn’t so easy being a Springsteen fan anymore. It’s considered uncool. The Boss hasn’t been hip since before the Republican party tried to co-opt “Born in the USA,” which they not only didn’t understand, but didn’t ask permission to use. It ended badly for GOP, but also left a bad taste in the mouths of the arbiters of cool.

I don’t care. I adore Springsteen. I love his songs, which are often short stories. They create entire worlds. In three minutes. I dream of writing screenplays based them.

All of this is why, in early February when I heard that he was doing a series of New England shows  in smallish venues, I decided to go. The shows were all somewhat near where my mom lives and it was a good excuse to visit.  This involved some preparation.

First on the agenda was getting tickets.  This is not nearly as easy as it was when I was almost somebody. In the good old days I could call someone who owed me a favor or just plain liked me, and they’d hook me up. Those days are long gone. Now, like the rest of the 99%, I’m screwed.

I called my friend Randi, who decided that she and Bill wanted to go to the Connecticut shows too and we put an plan in place. We’d both get online shortly before the on-sale time and sign up to the Ticketmaster website.  Surely between the two of us, we could get four tickets.

With military precision we began our assault on Ticketmaster’s site. And the tickets were sold out literally a minute after the on-sale time. Before we could get through. This was a frustrating on several fronts. How could 36,000 seats sell in less than a minute? Even if a couple of thousand tickets per show were being held for friends, family and radio stations, that should have left a hell of a lot of tickets for poor slobs with cash. But no.

Then there was the fact that the day before tickets were officially on sale, dozens of brokers were advertising ducats at triple face value. They had specific seats which meant they already had the tickets in their possession. Which explains how 36,000 tickets were gone in 30 seconds. They were sold before we even had a chance.

This left Randi and I sputtering with fury. And more importantly, plotting. How could we get

into the show without succumbing to the scalpers? We were flummoxed.  And furious.

Instant messages and texts sprinkled with curse words flew across the country. Then Bill, who is nothing if not practical, decided to go to one of the ticket outlets, just on the off chance that they might still have seats.  I thought he was dreaming.

He wasn’t.  He went to a Wal-Mart, a store I’ve never set foot in for political reasons, which had a Ticketmaster outlet. He handed them money and they gave him four seats in back of the stage. We took them gratefully.

Which is how, after practically begging someone to housesit the menagerie and a fight with Delta airlines about frequent flier mileage, I ended up sitting in a car in Albany with Bill, Randi and my nephew, Peter,  and his girlfriend. Peter is a HUGE fan. So are many of his 20-something friends. Pete had somehow finagled his own seats, so we split up at the show with a plan to meet afterwords.

Yes, we were in back of the stage, but we were low enough to read the little sign that read ‘Albany’ on the stairs going to the stage. And there was an awesome video screen just above us.

Bruce is a force of nature. At nearly 65 he looks better than 90% of my friends, and some of them are in their 20s. He plays to the entire crowd – front, sides and back, and acts like he couldn’t imagine anything better to do with his time. He probably can’t. Lord knows, he’s not performing because he needs the money. He probably has more money than he can spend (even if one of his daughters is an Olympic show jumping hopeful). Nope, he plays because he loves it.

It’s contagious.  From the little ‘tweeners’ that he pulled onstage to dance with him, to the grandma he waltzed with, to the man in near us in a wheelchair, the crowd was joyous. For all three hours and 27 songs.

But now I have that inevitable let-down that happens after a Bruce show. But it’s worth it