The first major mistake of my life.
Not the only mistake.
Not by far.
Just the first.
That was the night I turned down a chance to see Bruce Springsteen in concert at the San Diego Sports Arena.
I was 14 years old.
And I had never seen a Bruce show before.
He was on the last leg of the tour that was promoting The River 8-track tape.
I was at a friend’s house that afternoon, about ten minutes from the arena.
Unfortunately the rest of the details are a little fuzzy.
But the bottom line is part of our group went to the concert.
And the rest of us stayed at home.
I’m sure we did something really fun.
Like watch Laverne & Shirley.
Or play Pong.
But what I didn’t do is see Bruce.
Or the E Street Band.
It took me three years, one month and 29 days to realize what a giant mistake that was.
But thankfully on the night of October 31, 1984, I lost my Springsteen virginity.
That night my friend Phil and I had front row seats in the loge section at the L.A. Sports Arena.
And for four plus hours we were hypnotized.
I don’t know if that specific concert is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But to Phil and I, it is THE best concert of all-time.
According to the trusty internet, the show started with High School Confidential, a cover of the Jerry Lee Lewis song.
And it ended several hours later with a cover of Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Somewhere in the middle Bruce actually played some of his own songs.
Now by 1984 I had already been to a bunch of concerts.
Everything from Stevie Wonder to Poco.
Heart to Styx.
But it wasn’t until that night that I found out I had never seen a show before.
By that point I was familiar with some of Bruce’s music.
But after that show I became a SUPER fan.
28 years later I own pretty much everything he has done.
And pathetically I know most of the words to most of the songs.
I can’t count on both hands the number of Bruce concerts I have since attended.
I would guess it is somewhere in the high teens.
And I don’t plan on stopping there.
My most recent trip into the swamps of Jersey took place last Sunday.
In New Orleans.
For only the second time ever the 62-year-old Bruce was performing at the 43-year-old New Orleans Jazz Festival.
The first time was in 2006.
That year Bruce put on a heart-wrenching post-Katrina performance that they are still talking about today.
Now Bruce wasn’t the only reason I decided to go to the Big Easy last weekend.
But it sure was some nice icing on the cake.
At Jazz Fest, they have like ten stages.
Playing music all day, from 11a-7p.
My friend Mark and I dabbled in the little stages, but by Sunday afternoon at 4:30 there was only one place to be.
50,000 others had the same idea.
The main stage venue was absolutely packed.
90% Bruce fans.
10% others, who didn’t have the strength to leave the fairgrounds after a day of drinking in the hot sun.
But when Bruce took the stage, everybody was paying attention.
Even people that weren’t there.
And to help those who couldn’t make it, I decided to push my limits of technology.
Tweeting out the list of songs.
Live.
As they happened.
Two nights earlier I learned of this new phenomenon, as I monitored the show from Los Angeles.
Courtesy of @Variety_StuartL.
Like any good promoter, I notified the twitter world that afternoon that I would be doing this.
And within minutes I had a whole bunch of new followers.
I mean friends.
Like @girltrueheart.
And @nancpl.
And @stephensurefire.
And at least a dozen more.
Not Ashton Kutcher territory, but not bad for a mom-and-pop blogger with a funny moniker.
My friend Mark didn’t share in my enthusiasm.
Harassing me every time I tweeted during the concert.
Saying I should be focused on the show, instead of these people I didn’t even know.
But to me, it was just a way of paying it forward.
From the first note of Badlands at 4:42pm.
To the last note of Tenth Avenue Freeze Out.
Two hours and 32 minutes later.
I tweeted.
31 times. Posting 605 words.
And loving every second of it.
By the end of the show, my iPhone was out of battery.
And so was I.
Just like every Bruce show I had ever attended.
