E Street Blues
Jul. 16th, 2002 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidschrothBruce Springsteen will be doing a concert in St. Paul on September 30. The last time he appeared in the Twin Cities I didn't try to get tickets; it was the first time in almost 30 years that I had passed up an opportunity to see him in concert. I'm thinking tickets to the concert would be a good belated birthday present to myself. I'll have to see how things go.
From 1973 to 1977 I lived in Phoenix, Arizona. I was a student at ASU in Tempe - young, married, and poor as dirt. Most of the radio stations in Phoenix could be charitably characterized as undistinguished. The exception was KDKB (Krazy Dog, Krazy Boy). The Bill Compton was Program Director, and the station played the most eclectic assortment of good music that I've ever heard on a radio station. And one day, they started playing songs from someone I'd never heard of. Songs that grabbed me, and wouldn't let go. There was no mention of the artist that I could find in print, just these amazing songs playing on the radio. Then he was scheduled to play in town, but had to cancel. The only consolation was that KDKB got hold of an unreleased song (The Fever) and added it to their playlist. And then, finally, he scheduled a concert at the Celebrity Theater. Somehow we scraped up enough money for tickets.
I have never since been been in a theater like the Celebrity Theater. The building was round, and the seats were arranged in concentric circles around a central round platform. The band set up on the platform, and the platform started rotating. And continued rotating through the entire show.
At that show, the E Street Band consisted of Ernest Carter (drums), David Sancious (keyboards), Danny Federici (organs and miscellaneous instruments), Gary Tallent (bass), Clarence Clemons (saxophone), and Bruce Springsteen (guitar). I don't remember much of the show - just that I was totally blown away. I remember Bruce breaking a guitar string in the middle of a song, and the band seamlessly going into an extended, jazzy interlude while he replaced the string and talked to the audience. I remember him making a crack about how the stage would rotate one direction before intermission, and then the other direction after intermission so the wires could unwind. I was hooked.
Skip forward a year or two. Bruce is on the cover of Time and Newsweek, and he brings the Born to Run tour to Grady Gammage Auditorium for three or four shows. I get tickets to all but one of the shows. The band has changed - Max Weinberg is the drummer now, and Roy Bittan is on keyboards. And there's another guitarist - Steve Van Zandt. And the shows are even better than the show at the Celebrity. At one point during one of the shows, the entire band stops and points at the famous floating balcony in the auditorium - under the influence of the people in the balcony, the entire front of the balcony swaying about ten feet vertically. "There'll be some damage in Gammage". I think this is the first time I hear Thunder Road in concert, following a long rambling anecdote ending in "...This is the land of Truth, Justice, and No Mercy - Thunder Road."
I believe I missed the Darkness On the Edge of Town tour - at least it's first go around. I pick up the album when I move from Washington to Minnesota. But in the six months I spend in the Twin Cities, they play in town. I get tickets for myself, my wife, and two friends who have never seen him. When we get to the arena, we find that the sound board occupies the spot where our seats should be. So we end up being moved forward twenty rows. It's another great show. I feel like I'm a pusher - my friends come out of the show raving.
The shows kind of blur together over the years. I see them play in Los Angeles several times (several times in the Sports Arena, once in the Coliseum). When I return to work at Univac, my boss arranges one of business trips so that I can see them play in Frankfurt and Munich (Born In the USA tour, IIRC). Two outdoor concerts, two very different experiences. The audience at the Frankfurt concert is mostly young American GIs, and there's a lot of bad behavior, and a lot of avoidable injuries. The audience at the Munich concert is mostly European, and the concert is much more enjoyable.
It wasn't difficult getting tickets for the first concert, it's become increasingly difficult through the years. By the time of the last tour, I just wasn't into spending the time and money to get tickets before the ticket brokers snapped them all up. So I just sat that one out.
But at age 50, it looks like I'm starting over again. I'll probably attempt to dispose of the things I've accumulated over the years that I have no real attachment to. And I think I'll try to renew my connection to the things that once excited me, and made my life worth living. I haven't heard the new music yet, but I'm pretty sure I want/need to renew my connection with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
From 1973 to 1977 I lived in Phoenix, Arizona. I was a student at ASU in Tempe - young, married, and poor as dirt. Most of the radio stations in Phoenix could be charitably characterized as undistinguished. The exception was KDKB (Krazy Dog, Krazy Boy). The Bill Compton was Program Director, and the station played the most eclectic assortment of good music that I've ever heard on a radio station. And one day, they started playing songs from someone I'd never heard of. Songs that grabbed me, and wouldn't let go. There was no mention of the artist that I could find in print, just these amazing songs playing on the radio. Then he was scheduled to play in town, but had to cancel. The only consolation was that KDKB got hold of an unreleased song (The Fever) and added it to their playlist. And then, finally, he scheduled a concert at the Celebrity Theater. Somehow we scraped up enough money for tickets.
I have never since been been in a theater like the Celebrity Theater. The building was round, and the seats were arranged in concentric circles around a central round platform. The band set up on the platform, and the platform started rotating. And continued rotating through the entire show.
At that show, the E Street Band consisted of Ernest Carter (drums), David Sancious (keyboards), Danny Federici (organs and miscellaneous instruments), Gary Tallent (bass), Clarence Clemons (saxophone), and Bruce Springsteen (guitar). I don't remember much of the show - just that I was totally blown away. I remember Bruce breaking a guitar string in the middle of a song, and the band seamlessly going into an extended, jazzy interlude while he replaced the string and talked to the audience. I remember him making a crack about how the stage would rotate one direction before intermission, and then the other direction after intermission so the wires could unwind. I was hooked.
Skip forward a year or two. Bruce is on the cover of Time and Newsweek, and he brings the Born to Run tour to Grady Gammage Auditorium for three or four shows. I get tickets to all but one of the shows. The band has changed - Max Weinberg is the drummer now, and Roy Bittan is on keyboards. And there's another guitarist - Steve Van Zandt. And the shows are even better than the show at the Celebrity. At one point during one of the shows, the entire band stops and points at the famous floating balcony in the auditorium - under the influence of the people in the balcony, the entire front of the balcony swaying about ten feet vertically. "There'll be some damage in Gammage". I think this is the first time I hear Thunder Road in concert, following a long rambling anecdote ending in "...This is the land of Truth, Justice, and No Mercy - Thunder Road."
I believe I missed the Darkness On the Edge of Town tour - at least it's first go around. I pick up the album when I move from Washington to Minnesota. But in the six months I spend in the Twin Cities, they play in town. I get tickets for myself, my wife, and two friends who have never seen him. When we get to the arena, we find that the sound board occupies the spot where our seats should be. So we end up being moved forward twenty rows. It's another great show. I feel like I'm a pusher - my friends come out of the show raving.
The shows kind of blur together over the years. I see them play in Los Angeles several times (several times in the Sports Arena, once in the Coliseum). When I return to work at Univac, my boss arranges one of business trips so that I can see them play in Frankfurt and Munich (Born In the USA tour, IIRC). Two outdoor concerts, two very different experiences. The audience at the Frankfurt concert is mostly young American GIs, and there's a lot of bad behavior, and a lot of avoidable injuries. The audience at the Munich concert is mostly European, and the concert is much more enjoyable.
It wasn't difficult getting tickets for the first concert, it's become increasingly difficult through the years. By the time of the last tour, I just wasn't into spending the time and money to get tickets before the ticket brokers snapped them all up. So I just sat that one out.
But at age 50, it looks like I'm starting over again. I'll probably attempt to dispose of the things I've accumulated over the years that I have no real attachment to. And I think I'll try to renew my connection to the things that once excited me, and made my life worth living. I haven't heard the new music yet, but I'm pretty sure I want/need to renew my connection with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
