Kurt Vonnegut once said "Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God '' , to prove it go the Bruce show tonight at the garden and then go to church on Sunday and tell me which one was a more spiritual experience. Tonight's show is my tenth Springsteen show, as well as my first of three this week. I grew up listening to Bruce on car trips to our lakehouse in NY, mostly "Born In The USA" and "Tunnel of Love". My mother gave me "The Ghost of Tom Joad" on tape for my tenth birthday, as well as the Inner Circle cassette that had the bad boys song on it, I know weird. Anyways it wasn't until 8th grade that I really started to dig deeper into Bruce's cataloge. My sophmore year in highschool Bruce played in Austin, and Dad got tickets, and said that if I got a least a B in French (and this is after we lived in the god damn country) that he would take me, needless to say I got like a D, I know, I'm a moron. Anyway, two years later Bruce went on tour to support "The Rising" so Dad got one ticket to the show in Albany, and we made the trip knowing that I might be goin alone, luckily Dad got one outside and it obviously was undiscribable. In honor of tonight's show, heres a look back at that show and the other 8:December 12th 2002- Pepsi Arena -Albany, NY
Show Highlight: After an absolutely amazing show full of some of my favorites such as "No Surrender" and "Waiting On a Sunny Day", with us sitting at the side of the stage in perfet view of Bruce's antics, and at the end of the second encore Bruce and the band stood at the front of the stage hands folded as if they weren't yet satisfied with the loudness of the crowd, then people started throwing santa hat's onstage with one landing right on Bruce's folded arm's, Bruce responds with "You want me to play something?" and the band goes into a spectacular "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".
Personal Highlight: Seeing my first Bruce show with Dad.
March 10th 2003- Dunkin Donuts Center-Providence, RI
Show Highlight: I'm pretty sure it wwas like 4 or 5 days after the US entered Iraq, Bruce put aside the usual show opener "The Rising" for his cover of Edwinn Starr's "War".
Personal Highlight: Driving over an hour to Providence on a weeknight with Dad and Uncle Dan without tickets, with us ending up getting in for less then face, and it's the only time I've heard "Thunder Road" live.
October 30th 2005- Solo Acoustic Show-TD Banknorth Garden- Boston, MA
Show Highlight: After Bruce pumped through some of my favorite songs like "Back in Your Arms" (which due to him "going to the stripclub all day and drinking all that jack daniels" he completely messed up the first verse, which was hilarious) and "Real World" which was my first introduction to that song, He came back out for hi second encore and did "The Promise Land" afterwards he called for a harmonica, then went in to a mostly accapella campfire style sing along of "Dirty Water".
Personal Highlight: Went to the show with JP, and since it was an acoustic show Bruce had a set of rules which required people to not only remain quite, but concessions were closed right before show time, so me and JP decided to stock up on beers like it was water in a bomb shelter, but i figured it was alright to drink since Bruce was shitfaced too. Definetly s how that I'll never see anything like again, just amazing to watch him play songs by himself, and Mr Ed himself John Kerry was there too.
May 27th 2006- Bruce And The Seeger Sessions Band- Tweeter Center- Mansfield
Show Highlight: In the encore Bruce calls out for "his old friend Peter". Peter Wolf lead singer of the J Giels Band comes out for a americana version of "Dirty Water".
Personal Highlight: This was more like a life highlight, I was working for WZLX at the time and we had to be at the tweeter center around noon to set up our booth and huge balloon outside the show, so with orange juice and vodka in hand got to work. After a few hours we were almost done settin up when I hear the opening cords to "O Mary Don't You Weep" coming from inside, when I relize that it was Bruce's soundcheck, so with my liquid courage and the fact that there was no way I was goin to miss this I ran in to the tweeter. So here I am in a place that fits 13,ooo people completely empty with only three other people in there, with Bruce in overalls and the band onstage, so I move with drink in had to the 8th row in absolute disbelief. After Bruce finished up with the band I started to walk back to my coworkers when I noticed that the backstage door was open and people were coming in and out of it, now I had been back there a few times before including a very embarrasing drunken mishap after a Mellencamp show, and you gotta remember that I was like 21 at the time and didn't give a shit that I would probably lose my job if I got caught going back there, but hell it was Bruce. So I'm backstage at a Bruce show with the band and staff lining up to eat dinner, so what did I do? I grabbed a Plate and got in like right behind La Bumba who is part of the Max Wienberg 7, the only conversation we had in line was about how the asperigus looked delicious, so I sat down by myslef to eat my linguinie and asperigus, all while I was getting weird looks from lot of people that knew I shouldn't have been there, I sat and ate like a new kid at school all alone at the table, until one of the backup singers sat down, he didn't say much but it was still cool, so I finished up took the fork with me as a memento and went on my way with no sight of Bruce, but I did see Patti getting a Pepsi. Anyway Aunt Katie met me for the show and it was a blast.
October 2nd 2007-Hartford Civic Center- Hartford,CT-Opening Night of Magic Tour
Show Highlight: Reason to Believe which i talked about in a previous post was a major highlight.
Personal Highlight: I went to the Show with Cat, my Dad, my brother, uncle Dan, and Mr Harrison, and Cat and I sat lower left behind the stage while everyone else sat above the right side of the stage. About an hour or so into the show Bruce played the opening riff to "Darlington County" which is a McDermott family smash hit and always has been, immediately eye make contact with my Dad and brother from across the arena and all three of us go nuts, I'll never forget it. I felt kind of bad because out of the Bruce show I have seen that was definetly in the bottom of them all, like a lot of shows on that early leg of the tour it was not paced well and the setlist was not that good at all, and it was my brothers first bruce show so it was kind of a let down overall, but hell a bad Bruce show is still one of the best shows around.
November 18th, 2007 TdBanknorth Garden, Boston MA
Show Highlight: Halfway through the show Bruce pulls out an amazing version of "Tunnel of Love", got a lil teary eyed not gonna lie. Personal Highlight: It falling on the Sunday before my birthday it was smack dab in the middle of a very fun week begining with an NYC trip that weekend where I was suprised to see Harrison, Hutton, Freney, and Kerr in town for the Uconn game, as well as my brother, and the usual NYC bums Teddy, cousin Mike, Fagan, Sam and some whoo-waa he was dating that keep refering to him as "Poppy" even thought they'd only known eachother like 8 days, anyways great night, great Robert Earl Keen show the next nigh, ending with the Bruce show Sunday night with Vance and Johnny, but the highlight of the concert was going nuts with Johnny during Badlands.
November 19th 2007, TDBankshithole
Show Highlight: it was Danny Federici's very last full show with the E street band before he died of Melenoma the following spring, I found out he was sick during the trip to NYC from Coop who knew the drum tech for the band, and by showtime I felt that most everyone there knew that this would be Danny's lst show, at least for a while. You could tell it was a very emotional night for the band and for Bruce.
Personal Highlight: I went with Dave Lewis, who's wife hates me because he came home that night completely shitfaced which at the time was the worst shape he's been in since Woodstock 94. Also Peter Wolf came out for "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out" which was the first time I'd ever seen it live.
Feburary 28th 2008, Hartford Civic Center-Opening Night of The 2nd Leg
Show Highlight: Instead of the usual "Radio Nowhere" opener Bruce plays "So Young and in Love" which is one of my favorites off Tracks.
Personal Highlight: I left work early ( at the time I was a Account Executive at M-dubbs and it being the last day of the month it was highly scrutinized that I left work early with 39 deals on the board when 40 deals ment another $1,500 in my pocket, but I was confident that my 3 deals in the system would go through, needless to say they didn't, it was on going joke for about two months in the office) and went down with Gav and Godfrey to see the show, which was one of the funnest road trips ever.
August 2nd 2008, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough MA
Show Highlight: After closing the main set with "Badlands" Bruce comes out for the encore and says"now for the rarely played, and even more rarely requested" as he holds up a sign that said "I'm Going Down" which is one of my favorite songs of all time and one that I thoguht I'd never see live.
Personal Highlight: Easily on eof the best days I'll ever have, with Hutton, Kerr, Freney, Scoot, Buchannan and I getting Lincoln towncars to pick us up at my apartment and drop us off at the lovely Steph Nash's tailgate at the stadium. For many reasons I can not go in to details on what happended before or after the concert but it did include the best tailgating I've ever been a part of.
