Had a dream our love would last forever
Had a dream tonight that dream came true
Bruce Springsteen, Rendevous
“This button’s goin’ on eBay,” says the security guard guiding us to our seats at the Springsteen concert in the L.A. Sports Arena Tuesday night, the first of three shows before they tear “the dump” down. That’s the name Bruce gave it and the night is billed that way: The Dump That Jumps.
I took this picture of the button [Above] pinned to the chest of the guard. Her name is Gloria and I tell her Bruce wrote a song about her, but I don’t sing it to her, I just want a picture before her button goes on eBay.
An Open Conversation to The Ladies Who Loge
Dear You Two Gals who were near me singing full-throated like me into the face of that blast back, the kind you can only receive from a nine-piece rock and roll band playing live. Such a high-spirited musical message, delivered with unstoppable untoppable energy. The E Street eight pretty much blew me away.
I also enjoyed almost sitting with you two at the concert last night. You may have been in the Loge section behind me (on the Arena Risers) but I felt we really connected. Especially when I waved and looked at you often back there. Like we were all family, didn’t you?
Springsteen makes that happen in the hall.
“He seems like such a nice guy,” my sister sitting next to me says. Yes. Look at all the friends he has. He’s got lots. And when we all sing “Wrecking Ball” together, because that’s what’s coming to the Sports Arena after the band’s last concert this weekend, we perform it as a farewell tribute. More than ten-thousand of us; it feels like a civic moment, one that we shall never see the likes of again.
Probably. Right?
I mean, just as JFK will only be nominated once in his life and it took place in this building in 1960, these will be the last shows here, although Bruce began playing here in the 1980s.
The Los Angeles Memorial Coluseum Sports Arena. Just below the USC campus. JFK was right here at the dawn of rock and roll, the Beatles and all of that hope.
Bruce may be God for a lot of people in here, but it’s Nils Lofgren who puts the shiver in me. Drove it in deep, rounded it off, spun it around. He’s a swirling dirging droning guitar dervish. He stuck in the shiv and I shook for the life of me. (Nils is a mad hatter who used to do backflips on stage too)
So energetic! At some points the show was too much really — too much energy. I had to sit down. Like when they did, “Baby I’m a Rocker,” immediately I thought well, “Baby no, I’m not a rocker.”
Not like that, anyway! I mean where do they get it? This family band who swear they, “would drive all night/ just to buy you a pair of shoes/and to taste your tender charms.” That’s deep, deep love.
Soon come thoughts of like, who am I to be receiving all this? What did I do to deserve these inspiring stories of faith, hope, anger, rebellion, imprisonment, freedom, sex and love. So energetic, as I said, all lined up nine in a row like that! Like BRUCE: THE MUSICAL. Playing every song in a row from The River lps create a concept kind of concert. His up and down adventures and finally breaking free leaving home on “Independence Day” with a plaintive cry from his harmonica. Other songs popped up like double bubble bubblegum Bruce, especially “Hungry Heart,” a branded pop topper all the way (and his first #1 single). But I looked and you two were definitely happy hoppy teeny-bopping, recognizing we are family when Clarence Clemons’ nephew seems to hit every single sax note originally blasted by the Big Man.
I need to sit down, take a drink of water and think about this. Okay, here’s my energy: I’m living in that Dylan world where “it’s doom alone that counts.” First my father went, then my favorite uncle, now the near and dear older brother I never had. It’s too much doom doom doom and did I mention I’m trying on my third SSRI this week?
So thanks Boss. Appreciate the release. This religious experience I only get from live rock and roll.
I am happy to hear him play “Human Touch.” I saw you singing it up there in the loge behind me. A song about conversation, after all:
You might need somethin’ to hold on to
When all the answers, they don’t amount to much
Somebody that you could just to talk to
And a little of that human touch
Wow. You gals looked like you were having such a great time. In my mood it sounds at times like The Dirges and Drones concert. The crush of two pianos and five guitars at one point a buzz snapping at my head in high pitch like the sound mix was off — probably my hearing was.
“One fast song, one slow,” right, that’s Bruce at heart as I explained to my sister. He’s more than heart. He is the heart and soul of integrity. Singing, “Two hearts are better than one/two hearts can get the job done” sends a straight ahead gut-or-just-above-it-level truth that gets into everyone who sings along.
I believe in the love that you gave me
I believe in the faith that can save me
I believe in the hope
And I pray that some day it may raise me
Above these Badlands
For the ones who had a notion
A notion deep inside
That it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive
I would follow his stirring storytelling anywhere. And I have for so many years, seeing him play in NYC, D.C. and England. No wonder it is meaningful for me. Overwhelming at times, this fullness brings tears. Wondering how I will get through this “Lonesome Day,” Bruce asks me to join in :
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright, yeah
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright, yeah
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright, yeahI
It’s alright, it’s alright
And you know it will be, or it is at least right now, which brings such tremendous release.
Speaking of dirging and droning and weeping, how sad was the band’s rendition of the title cut? “The River” started down and then at the chorus dropped another notch entirely, like the song just drops off the table in a change of gears, like the slowed-down chorus in “Strawberry Fields.” [SEE PREVIOUS WALKY.TALKY POST where George Martin explains how he edited together two sides of that Beatles classic] But this seems the darkest, hardest slog the show has to pull through:
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true/Or is it something worse?
And a ghostly feminine “woooooooooo” reaches from “The River” into another realm (LA TIMES says it was Bruce in falsetto). Church comes with “The Rising” as Bruce stands in stark white light and “Lonesome Day” brings the group hug everyone needs. Then comes the Benediction of “Thunder Road” and we hear it thunder as only arena rock can, while you’re walking up the concrete steps underneath on the way out.
Oh-oh come take my hand/Riding out tonight to case the promised land
The Beatles are Love and Bruce is Togetherness. All of us dancing in the dark trying to write our story. A union prayer book as big as the world. We use it when we sing and rejoice, sharing one voice. And of course, following Bruce’s story. His myth. A helluva lot better than following the Ted Cruz myth. That path is so depressing, aint it, death and sickness all around –if they’d told me this was what adulthood was really about I’d have tried to have more fun as a young person. More fun with you ladies in the Loge!
My sister describes it this way when I drop her off at her hotel in Santa Monica: “Music surpasses life. You know?”
Wow. That was something I’d never thought of before.
“You’re right,” I say.
“What’s the word I’m looking for?” she asks and then Googles it:
“’Transcends.’”
Yes! She has had a transcendent experience. Just like me. Still believing in the power of music to transcend our daily lives. Now to take the energy from this concert and spread it wherever we go. It will take us a while to recover, hopefully.
