April 22, 2024
Greetings from The Boss,
My relationship with Bruce Springsteen has been a sporadic, but loyal, friendship. There were a few summers that I played more Springsteen than I would play for all of the rest of my summers combined.
If I’m honest, without the Perrine Brothers, (capitalized for trademark purposes) I might have missed out on Bruce altogether. When I was younger, my record collection was limited to a few discs my sisters owned, a Greatest Hits of the 70’s Anthology, and a few old Motown hits.
But when I met the Perrine family, they brought their own sound track, a lifestyle that seemed to run rampant inside it. There was other music, but the main sounds that threaded through our adventures were played by the E Street Band. I won’t start the list of things to be grateful for during those years, but toward the top would be the songs of Bruce Springsteen.
In the margins of the few regrets I have in my life we might write that I would wish there were more concerts. This is not a tragedy, but it is finally dawning on me that there is a celebration there that I may have underestimated.
Now, before it might be too late for either of us, I went to see The Boss. And like so many important journeys, just getting there was half the fun. Maybe more than that.
My wife surprised me with these tickets for Christmas, in fact ‘surprise’ is too mild a word for it. The idea of going to any concert was in my subconscious, but it might have stayed there until all of my memories were memories. But she heard a whisper of want from me and turned the hint into reality.
Among the cast of characters in this performance was my brother Douglas. If there was a sound track to our travel on the way it would be laughter. My face is sore from laughing. Just now that made me laugh and it was a little painful. That’s kind of what it’s like to be with Doug: painful, but hilarious.
Doug and I were walking along in downtown Columbus and he pointed to a group of people huddled in winter bundles across the street. My first thought was they were homeless folks but Douglas pointed out they all brought their own folding chairs. He thought they might be in line for the concert, which was still nine hours away.
“No way. That would be crazy,” I said, incredulously. Turns out that was an understatement.
We stood in the crisp air under crystal blue skies and talked with these Spring Nuts, as they call themselves, and was swept away by the crazy. Some of them had been in line since 5 am, part of an elaborate, well-organized system put in place by these dedicated Springsteen fans. It was astonishing.
Ok, they are not crazy. They are passionate, joyful, really amazing people. I wish you could meet them all. They were incredibly friendly and very willing to tell their stories. Some had traveled thousands of miles, some had been to concerts all over the world. They all had wonderful memories, and while Bruce was at the center, the other fans were the latticework that the love was built on. Wow.
When I asked if they had a favorite concert, one woman said the music was always great, but the difference was the audiences, that was the experience that changed. Others kept track of setlists, or loved a certain venue, or named a few favorite songs, but one thing came back again and again and again. The people they met along the way, that’s where the love was.
The rest of the day we crossed paths with other fans, and it became common to hear people say they’d been to fifty or sixty or more than a hundred concerts. The lengths these devoted fans went to was inspiring. It became almost normal to hear about crisscrossing the country and flying to Europe to hear The Boss.
As astonished as I was to hear some of these experiences, they were as astonished by me and Doug, neither of whom had been to a single Bruce concert. Until now.
There are a few things I’ll tell you about the concert that will tell all of the story. First, I never sat down for over three hours. Second, Bruce Springsteen was a joy to watch; the power, the passion and the breathtaking talent, is as strong right now as it was when I first set the needle on an LP fifty years ago. And third, it would not have been the same without the people around us. They were part of the show too. I guess Doug and I were as well.
I have been somehow separate from this experience for all of my life, and I have wondered out loud to my friends why I have never made the connection that so many other music fans have. Not just fans of Springsteen, but anyone who lights up when they talk about this kind of experience. Well, I think I finally got it.
Later, Doug said that he remembered years ago when he would go to concerts that you always had to wait in those crazy lines before a concert, and it just dawned on him what a great time that was. Maybe time has colored the experience some, but he’d forgotten how he would connect with people before the music, standing around swapping stories while you waited for the doors to open. Back before Ticketmaster sanitized the process. You know, made it so convenient you could avoid all that interaction. Wow.
It's probably clear by now, but there is a bold line through all of this experience. The music, the talent, the lyrics, the performances of the magicians in the E Street Band, is in all of this. But look at the cast: the Perrines, my wife, my brother, the people outside the arena, waiting in the cold, every person we met as we made our way to the concert yesterday, that’s where the beauty is.
Yesterday a woman told me how happy she was for me, that I would be seeing my first Springsteen concert. She was so genuine, she was just delighted I was going to have this.
“It’s life changing,” she said, just beaming at me.
I was a little taken aback at her excitement, and if I’m honest, a little skeptical. But the truth is, now that I have really paid attention to what is really happening in all of this, I get it. She was right, it did change my life in a way. I saw this going on and I thought, “If this is possible, what else might be possible? How much more could there be?”
Watching Bruce, in his seventh decade, still doing what he loves with everything he has, I thought to myself, “It’s not too late.”
Hope this finds you racing in the streets,
David
Copyright © 2024 David Smith