Thursday, August 10, 2023 Entry #158
Before I leave Chicago, site of the Springsteen show I just saw in Wrigley Field, I have one more list of concert to share. My last entry was a retrospective of the last fourteen Bruce Springsteen concerts I attended on this one tour ( See Entry #157). Since Chicago was also where I had my very first Springsteen live experience in 1980, it is from here that I will catalogue the seven Springsteen performances I saw that preceded this last big batch. That’s right, it took me less than two years to attend double the amount of Springsteen shows that I had seen over a period of 43 years!
RABBI RANDY’S SPRINGSTEEN CONCERT #1
OCTOBER 1980 AT THE UPTOWN THEATRE-CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
This was the show that started it all! I was sixteen years old, impressionable, and embracing new discoveries and experiences. I was with a buddy, and we each had a date. We were so incredibly lucky to catch Springsteen just as he was about to break big in Chicago. The Uptown was one of those grand urban movie palaces. It had less than 5,00 seats; less than a year later, Springsteen would return to the Windy City and sell out three concerts at the immeasurably less intimate Rosemont Horizon (Capacity 18,000). Watching Bruce Springsteen perform that night blew my teenage mind. He rocked and boogied, told tender and poignant stories, jumped off the speaker towers and the piano, goofed around with Clarence Clemons, and was simply inexhaustible. Somehow he pulled off being both familiar and mysterious; sincere and ironic; serious and silly; sweet and tough. “Jungleland,” Jungleland,’ “Jungleland!”—I will always remember Springsteen playing that incredibly epic song that night and how it made me feel. It wasn’t my first rock concert, but it set the standard for the rest of them forever more.
RABBI RANDY’S SPRINGSTEEN CONCERT #2
JULY 1999 AT THE MEADOWLANDS-EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY
It’s still hard for me to believe. After that euphoric beginning it was almost twenty years before I saw Springsteen again. He was never far from my radar, and I continued to purchase his every new release. I think the biggest obstacle for me was the massive popularity of Springsteen’s blockbuster album, Born In The U.S.A. Even though it is actually a fantastic collection of songs, in my college years I was more drawn to music that wasn’t as known and beloved by “the masses.” In retrospect, it was a silly stance, the marathon-like and powerful concerts in those years were some of the best of Springsteen’s career. I do not regret missing the tours Springsteen did afterwards with the bands that replaced the temporarily disbanded E Street Band, but oh, how did I manage to not see even one solo acoustic show when Springsteen was on the road supporting The Ghost of Tom Joad?
By the time Springsteen called the E Street Band back together. I was living in New York City. I got a ticket for one of the reunion shows in Springsteen’s home state of New Jersey (he pulled off an incredible 15-night stand at The Meadowlands!) It had been a long time and I was chomping at the bit for this opportunity. The Boss did not disappoint! The entire setlist was off the charts, but two songs stood out to me. “Freehold” was a hilarious acoustic ode to the Jersey town where Springsteen grew up, complete with lyrics about his first sexual experience, and a botched attempt at installing a Springsteen statue in town. Then, there was Springsteen’s brand-new composition, “Land of Hope and Dreams” the song Springsteen chose to close out the concert. I heard it as a stirring, idealistic gospel masterpiece carrying Springsteen’s conviction that there is more that unties than divides us and we are fellow travelers in all our diversity. Here, Springsteen presaged Barack Obama’s “Red State/Blue State” speech by almost ten years, and both had the same emotional effect on me. I loved the song straight away, and I left ecstatic that I had finally seen a Springsteen concert again.
RABBI RANDY’S SPRINGSTEEN CONCERT #3
AUGUST 2002 AT THE SAVVIS CENTER-ST. LOUIS, MO
Just shy of one year after the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, Springsteen toured the world with his emotional musical response to that day and its aftermath. The Rising, Springsteen’s album that reflected on the same themes, was easily among his best, ensuring Springsteen’s continued relevance into the twenty-first century. Because I was leading Friday night services the night of the concert, I arrived late, meeting my friends who were already well enthralled with The Boss. This was the tour that really established Springsteen as more than a rock n’ roll superstar. He had emerged as a truly integral artist who uses his craft and voice to make sense of the times we find ourselves in. It was an emotionally cathartic concert, and I was so grateful to be there.
RABBI RANDY’S SPRINGSTEEN CONCERT #4
AUGUST 2005 AT THE FOX THEATRE-ST. LOUIS, MO
After releasing the sparse Devils and Dust, Springsteen went out on his second solo tour in ten years. I was determined not to miss this one. What a treat it was! Accompanying himself on guitar and piano, Springsteen played most of his new songs (including one with a detailed but sensitive description of an encounter with a prostitute), but he also offered up music from throughout his career in this very different style and setting. Without the jubilant atmosphere The E Street Band creates, Springsteen’s voice on its own carried a unique blend of maturity (a kind of weatherdness), gravity, reassurance, catharsis, and knowing that took my breath away. This was the night when I realized that pretty much anything Springsteen says and the way he says it resonates fully with me. The Fox is gorgeously ornate, and Springsteen’s luster matched the space perfectly.
RABBI RANDY’S SPRINGSTEEN CONCERT #5
SEPTEMBER 2012 AT WRIGLEY FIELD-CHICAGO, IL
My brother-in-law, the same Springsteen fan who joined me in Calgary to see Bruce from the pit last November, scored me a ticket to this one. We sat in the stands above the first-base line. As I wrote about a more recent show here (See Entries #155 and #156), seeing Springsteen at Wrigley Field is quite an awesome experience when one is into both Springsteen and the Chicago Cubs. This concert was in support of Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball album which is his most political record to date. Accordingly, there were a lot of songs on the setlist that addressed economic inequality and social justice, which was more than fine with me! In addition, Springsteen welcomed not one, but two special guests onstage, one after the other. First up was Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, who was at that point poised to become an honorary member of the E Street Band. Next was Eddie Vedder, the exotic-voiced leader of Pearl Jam. Vedder, a Chicago native (and proud Cubs booster) has emerged from his grunge beginnings to become a certified member of rock royalty. Morello jammed with Springsteen on four songs, Vedder on one, and both joined Bruce and the band for the encore. With my kids still young, I had missed some great Springsteen tours, including those that supported the albums The Seeger Sessions (2006), Magic (2007), and Working On A Dream (2009). I was so glad to be back this time around.
RABBI RANDY’S SPRINGSTEEN CONCERT #6
MARCH 2016 AT THE CHAIFETZ ARENA-ST. LOUIS, MO
This was the Springsteen and the E Street Band tour in conjunction with the release of The Ties That Bind, an archive collection that combined an unreleased album from the early 1980’s with outtakes from Springsteen’s seminal The River. At this concert, Springsteen played The River in its entirety (performing the songs in the same order as they appear on the album), and then he broke out an assortment of songs from his entire vast catalogue. I was there with good friends and we all agreed that Springsteen was in incredible form at this stage in his career, even diving in for a round of crowd surfing! As The River was the album Springsteen put out literally one week after I saw him live for the first time, hearing those songs and stories with both Springsteen and I now in a more mature place in life was especially meaningful.
RABBI RANDY’S SPRINGSTEEN CONCERT #7 (SPRIGSTEEEN ON BROADWAY)
JUNE 2021 AT THE ST. JAMES THEATRE-NEW YORK CITY
Near the end of President Barack Obama’s time in office, Bruce Springsteen performed a private concert at the White House that was unlike anything he had done before. Springsteen wove acoustic performances of his songs with scripted spoken word selections from his recently published memoir (which is a stunning work). Obama told his rocker friend that what he had just witnessed would make a wonderful Broadway show. So Springsteen went and did it! Springsteen on Broadway was a Grammy-winning theatrical hit during its 2017-2018 run. I dearly wanted to see it, but I just couldn’t make it happen. I signed up for Netflix just so I could watch the televised version on my birthday.
In the summer of 2021, just as society was gradually re-opening from the COVID-19 lockdown, it was announced that Springsteen would reprise his Broadway show for a limited run. I took that as a sign that it was finally my time and I got a ticket the day they went on sale. It gets better. On the day of the performance, I grabbed an opportunity to purchase a front-row center seat on a resale site, and then sold my original ticket to the NYC friend I was staying with. The Springsteen show was actually the first post-pandemic production staged at any Broadway theatre. On this joyful occasion, the New York Times proclaimed, “Bruce Springsteen Reopens Broadway, Ushering In Theater’s Return,” and deemed the revived show “A turning point in live theater.”
Vaccination cards were mandatory for admittance—remember those days? That is how I came to be staring up at Bruce Springsteen startingly up close and personal in an indoor venue, without that ubiquitous mask on my face. I bawled my eyes out at the sheer beauty of the show and the general feeling of rebirth in the air. Springsteen told and sang his life story directly to us as if we were all just hanging out in his living room as he lovingly held court. He chronicled both his inner experiences and the world around him. Springsteen employed charisma, humor, wisdom, strength, exuberance, empathy, humility, and grace. He added new monologues to the show that spoke to COVID, the Black Lives Matter protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd, and his recent motorcycle ride that resulted in a DUI charge. Witnessing Springsteen on Broadway was one of the impetuses that led to my desire to see Bruce Springsteen in concert as much as I could the next chance I got. It turns out, that chance came less than two years later, in the form of the first Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band tour since 2017. It was this run of shows from which I tripled the number of times I have gotten to see the legendary Bruce Springsteen live onstage, from these first seven to twenty-one and (hopefully) counting.
