It was December 3 1975, and my brother Jimmy had just celebrated his 22nd birthday. He and a friend were about to use a birthday gift he received from that friend: a pair of concert tickets for an up and coming rocker named Bruce Springsteen. That night at the Music Hall, the screen door slammed in the opening notes of Thunder Road, and Mary's dress would sway/wave and light the collective fuse of a musical and bonding movement for my family and friends that would cross five decades.
The 26-year-old musician from Freehold, New Jersey, had just released his third album, an LP entitled Born to Run. (The anniversary release date of that album, just coincidentally, was wedged between Springsteen's latest two local shows this week - August 25th). What followed was a kinetic musical explosion still hallowed till this day, one that didn't end that night until a Quarter to Three.
Jimmy and his friend were lucky enough to witness that show, and five years later in December, 1980, he would take his 16-year-old brother in tow to yet another brothers concert outing - following on the heels of my first live concerts, David Bowie, Queen and the Who. Those Springsteen shows in the Boston Garden and in Providence, R.I. would notch my first live Springsteen pilgrimages.
Four years later, on July 27, 1984 at Saratoga Springs, New York, the Bruce-net would widen, and several of my elementary and high school buddies would take their first live drink of Bruce Kool-Aid, as Bruce and friends slid into a cover of Credence Clearwater Revival's Who'll Stop the Rain to console the soaked masses huddled together in the New York downpour.
Eight years later, a Meadowlands concert would play host to my bachelor party, details of which cannot be revealed within this blog.
Flash forward to 2023, that same group has continued to expand in its numbers one by one by one, with more friends, spouses, and eventually, our children, joining the followers. (Like the E Street Band, we've sadly lost some of those friends along the way, but they remain with us as a proverbial Spirit in the Night whenever the opening chords are struck during the live performances.)
Collectively, our immediate circle has attended more than five hundred shows in various combinations, checking out Springsteen performances not just across the United States, but overseas as well.
And this week, we indoctrinated two more first-timers into the experience that has shaped our musical lives, a live concert with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
I'm proud to stand alongside our two newest live show converts - my beautiful daughter Heather and her fiance Ryan Fandl, a bonafide transplant from somewhere in the Swamps of Jersey.
Andrew, a longtime acolyte who's attended nearly two dozen Bruce shows with me since his first on May 27th, 2006 at the tender age of 12, gives his seal of approval to one of our new attendees.
A concert at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro always affords us the opportunity for a gathering of friends, family, folklore and urban legend reminiscing at a mandatory tailgate party, complete, of course with a vat of Scott's Top 10 Chili (Trademark, me)
This particular night, we had a healthy representation of E Streeter testosterone in attendance
Thankfully, we were kept grounded by our better halves
And for ye humble writer, the first time in 43 years of Springsteen shows where I had the entirety of my six-pack of a growing family able to attend a Bruce show with me.
Let's dispense with the feedbag and get over to Gillette, where we needed to disperse throughout the stadium into our respective seats. One last group shot before we parted ways.
Inside Gillette, it was No Retreat, No Surrender as soon as Bruce and the E Street Band stepped onto the stage.
A light rain that fell during She's the One and the Rising created some effectively mood lighting and particularly enhanced the latter of those songs.
Anyone who has attended live Springsteen show knows how physically and emotionally draining his shows can be, both for him, but also for those watching the tapestry of songs. Past outings usually run 3-4 hours long, marathon outings that set the bar for pulse-pounding rapid fire successions of literally hundreds of different songs that have marked the various stages of Springsteen's career. (Our last Bruce show at Gillette in 2016 officially clocked in over four hours as the second-longest show of his career, though our on-scene stopwatches actually marked it as the longest.)
A couple of sidebars to emphasize the gravity of me getting to experience my daughter's first Bruce Show. Heather was born five days after I met Bruce at show at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium. (Special props to her mom for not letting her water break prematurely so I could attend said show.)
Part two: More than two decades ago, when I would drive Heather and Andrew to school in the early mornings, indeed, when Heather was only three and still in a car seat, in between Disney movie soundtracks, they were subjected to me usually listening to Springsteen music on CDs or the radio.
In Heather's case, it allowed her to learn and belt out angelic and melodious front-to-back lyrics for Springsteen classics such as Born to Run, My City of Ruins, and her guaranteed go-to, Thunder Road.
Fast forward to 2023, the night was busting open and I was able to take another ride down Thunder Road, belting out those lyrics alongside Heather, now a grown woman.
A core memory that I will take with me the rest of my days.
What has changed in recent years - which not everyone would agree has been a positive evolution, is the addition of tens of thousands of cell phone cameras that allow concert-goers to document their personal sojourns through the shows.
While not all view the multimedia inclusion as a positive thing, it does allow everyone to help chronicle their personal concert experience, and in many cases, especially when the lights go up, document the mania and sheer joy of experiencing these shows together with friends and family.
Moments such as these, with Katie and Jackie (and now Ryan) sticking with us for better or for worse:
Finally, the encores kick in as the unofficial/official anthem for E Street Nation, Born to Run, roars in on that 1-2-3-4 countdown, and the boundless euphoria takes over and the collective 60,000 fans unite as one in their shared experience of a runaway American Dream.
For this version of Scooter and the Big Man, it's a glorious zenith of energy and jubilance as we unleash our personal dreams and visions on a highway jammed with broken heroes.
And just like that, just shy of three hours, the last chords are struck and the Last Man Standing closes out the evening with a reminder that it's never really quite the end.
I'll see you in my dreams
When all our summers have come to an end
I'll see you in my dreams
We'll meet and live and laugh again
I'll see you in my dreams
Yeah, up around the river bend
For death is not the end
And I'll see you in my dreams
If you're still reading up to this point, thanks for coming along on this sojourn with all of us.
Welcome to the newest members of E Street Nation, as well as the ones who have not yet been indoctrinated into our musical crusade.
And yeah, as Bruce would say, and Heather and I would reinforce in our father-daughter duet - maybe we ain't that young anymore, but show a little faith.
There still is Magic in the Night.
