“Will he go for three hours, do you think?”
“Yeah, I wonder that too. I mean he’s almost 75. I’d be off that stage in 90 minutes but we’ll see.”
That was my husband and me at dinner on September 7, just before our fourth Springsteen concert together. We saw him in 2009, 2012, and 2016; and he bought the tickets for this tour in mid-2023. Health issues forced Bruce Springsteen to reschedule his late 2023 shows, and we held on to the tickets.
It was a perfect clear Saturday night at Nats Park, after a cloudy afternoon with little bursts of half-hearted rain. We took the Metro Red Line from Glenmont to Fort Totten and then switched to a Green LIne train to Navy Yard. 45 minutes from door to door, and that included driving to the Metro station, parking, buying a new fare card because I left my fare card in my wallet which I didn’t have with me because I was trying to carry as little as possible in my tiny tiny tiny Nats Park-compliant bag, waiting for the train, changing trains, and waiting for the second train. When Metro is good, it’s very very good. We strolled along First Street with all of the other happy concert-goers, feeling sorry for all the people in their cars, driving around the neighborhood looking for parking.
When we arrived for the show, very early, an older (than us) couple were in the seats directly behind us. Very lovely people but extremely gregarious. Very talkative. Outgoing to a degree that I just cannot understand or cope with for extended periods of time. We chatted with them, meaning that we listened and nodded and threw in a few appropriate remarks at appropriate opportunities, for about an hour. And then just when I thought that I couldn’t handle any more interaction with these preternaturally friendly humans, the stadium lights went down and the stage lights went up, and the crowd began to roar. It was 7:40 PM, exactly 10 minutes past the scheduled 7:30 PM start.
Our seats were on the club level. The section itself was a normal section, not a corporate box, but it felt fancy walking through the glass doors from the cement concourse to the carpeted club section. It was much more pleasant buying drinks in the indoor lounge area than from a concession stand. And the bathrooms in that section are SO MUCH NICER. 10/10 would recommend.
*****
My first Bruce Springsteen concert was in 1984, during the Born in the USA tour. Even if you never attended a Born in the USA tour show, even if you weren’t alive in 1984, you probably know what Bruce wore on stage that night - faded blue jeans, a white t-shirt, a bandanna. People throw around the word “iconic” to describe all manner of garments and outfits, but this look was truly iconic according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines “icon” in several ways, including this: “a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol.” The blue jeans and t-shirt and bandanna were truly a representative symbol of American rock and roll. So was Bruce himself.
He was in his 30s then, and incredibly energetic, constantly in motion, a live wire. I don’t remember very much about that show (except that my ticket cost $19 and my t-shirt cost $10) other than a story about Bruce’s father, an old-fashioned conservative who was relieved rather than disappointed when the Army rejected his son, keeping him out of Vietnam. I’m sure he told that story at every show. Stories are part of the performance. But it was still moving.
*****
40 years later (almost 40 years to the day - I looked it up and the Philadelphia shows were in mid-September, just as I had remembered), Bruce is still very energetic, but more restrained, more dignified. He still wears jeans, now paired with a button-down shirt, a vest (also fully buttoned) and a tie. His hair is very short. His clothes are perfectly tailored. He looks very GQ now, very natty. He also still looks very rock and roll, but elder statesman rock and roll. There’s nothing edgy about his persona now; nothing rebellious or punk about his look or demeanor. His appearance and comportment on stage make clear that he knows exactly how important and legendary he is, and that he has neither the need nor the desire to come across as young or of the moment. He has nothing to prove.
But even though he has nothing to prove, he was still on stage for three hours, playing mostly his own standards, everything from “Badlands” to “Tenth Avenue Freezeout” to “Promised Land.” The mostly but by no means exclusively older crowd sang along, roaring approval as each familiar intro played. I’d already planned to pretend that I couldn’t hear them if our very gregarious new friends in the row behind us insisted on chatting with us during the show, but thankfully they stopped talking and sang along with the music.
When we arrived at 6:15 or so, the friendly couple were among the very few other people in our section. The field had already begun to fill up, though - there’s no assigned standing position and latecomers with field tickets end up way in the back, far from the stage. The man tapped me on the shoulder (this man touched me at least 5 times, and managed still not to creep me out). Pointing to the standing room area on the field, he asked “Do they stand the whole time?”
“The whole time,” I said. “Better them than us, right?” Laughing, we all agreed that people our age (50s) and people their age (early 70s) have no business in a mosh pit. People in the stands didn’t really stand and dance, so they wouldn’t block the view of seated people behind them, and Nats Park security didn’t allow dancing in the aisles. The only place where you could dance all night was in the standing room area on the field.
Until the encore, that is. At a Springsteen show, the encore is actually like a second show. When the stage lights went down, I expected a five-minute break, so I ran to go to the restroom, and ended up missing most of “Born to Run,” because the encore started almost immediately. I could still hear, though, and I’ve heard “Born to Run” probably 200 times at least, so it’s OK that I missed it.
During that encore, which went about 30 minutes, all of Nats Park was a mosh pit. Everyone was on their feet, dancing and singing along to “Born to Run” and “Thunder Road” and “Rosalita.” Bruce sang “Well tell him this is his last chance…” and the crowd finished for him. It was Rosalita’s dad’s last chance to get his daughter in a fine romance, because the record company had just given her suitor a big advance. There are few songs more fun to sing along to in public than “Rosalita.” The famous band introductions happened in the lead-in to “Tenth Avenue,” which featured huge photo and video backdrops of the late Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici. The band left the stage a second time, and then Bruce returned on his own and performed “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” and then the show was over at just about 10:40 PM.
Our friends had already gone home - they missed most of the encore because they drove to Nats Park from Springfield, VA and wanted to get ahead of the traffic. I’m sure they hated to miss the last few songs, but they probably did the right thing because by the time we got out of the stadium, the streets were already gridlocked with cars filled with people trying to get back to Maryland and Virginia. The Metro station was also very crowded, but the crowds were orderly and calm, and everyone got on their trains.
Bruce Springsteen will be 75 very soon, so it’s not unreasonable to wonder how much longer he can do this. I mean, I’m not quite 60 and I’m wondering if I should be out here dancing at concerts and buying $50 t-shirts. Between Metro and t-shirts and drinks and dinner and the tickets, we probably spent $800 on this concert. Middle class people like us can spend $800 on a night out or we can put two kids through college. We probably can’t do both, at least not often. But a Bruce Springsteen concert is a special-enough occasion that it’s worth the money. If it does turn out to be his last tour, I’m glad we were there.
