Day of BRUCE

November 2, 2007

Bruce. What more can I say about Bruce that I haven’t already said? After the concert, even Devin admitted that it was better than the 2003 Stadium Tour. Our seats were incredible, even though I didn’t spend much time actually sitting in mine. I’m crazy sore from dancing like a maniac, and I did so much screaming, and singing along that I’ve lost my voice.

He played some of my absolute favorite songs. The set list has already been posted on BruceSpringsteen.net. Of course, he played a lot of songs (eight of them) from Magic (new album). Luckily I love the new album, even though I’m not enamored with all of the songs (“Girls In Their Summer Clothes” is one that I could do without), and my absolute favorite is “Livin’ In The Future.” I’ve been listening to that one non-stop for days.

I had a conniption fit when “Lonesome Day” started. It’s from The Rising and is easily in my top ten favorite Bruce songs. The entire arena had a collective conniption fit when the band launched into “Adam Raised A Cain” from Darkness on the Edge of Town and after each refrain of “Adam raised a Cain!” there’s a big YEAH! and that was so much fun. Everybody was pounding their fists into the air “YEAH!” Even Devin got in on the fun.

From that same album (which was Bruce’s 4th album and it came out in 1978), he also played “The Promised Land”. The last part of it’s chorus is “Mister I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man / And I believe in a promised land,” and I love the song (I love that whole damn album), so I was screaming at the top of my lungs that “No, Mister, I ain’t a boy, I’m a MAN!”. At the end of the song, the girl in front of me, who was having just as much as I was, turned around and said, “High five for being men!” Which was just so damned cool to me.

When the band launched into “Backstreets” (from Born to Run), I thought some people were going to pass out they were so hysterical. It’s a nice enough song but it’s become the annals of Bruce Fandom. Then they played four more songs from the new album with “The Rising” (from the album of the same name), another song that I love and one that is especially good for audience participation.

But it was “Badlands” that drove me absolutely wild. It’s my all-time favorite Bruce song and I’m not the only one. The entire arena went completely bonkers when he launched into it.

I know I’ve mentioned this particular verse from that song many times but it still energizes me, and it is still one of the anthems of my life.

For the ones who had a notion,

a notion deep inside

That it ain’t no sin

to be glad you’re alive

I think it’s a pretty good anthem for one’s life. It’s certainly worked for mine.

The encore was amazing and everyone was screaming, and dancing, and chanting “BRUUUUUUUUUUUCE” over and over. He kicked off the encore with “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” from the new album, and I’ve already said that I don’t like it very much. Although I was still dancing to it and having a great time.

But it was the next song that sent the entire arena into a paroxysm of glee. It was Thunder Road and oh, how I love that song. It’s the first song on his Born To Run album, and it was the song that made me fall completely in love with Bruce. So, of course, I went absolutely nuts when the band started playing the opening chords. I think it was at this point that I accidentally whacked the guy next to me because I was frantically flailing my arms all over the place.

After “Thunder Road,” they launched into “Born To Run and I didn’t think it could get any crazier in that arena but “Born To Run” proved me wrong. It was absolute madness at that point.

(Aside: I bought two shirts at the concert, one of which had the words “Tramps Like Us, Baby We Were Born To Run” on the front. I wore it earlier this week and people kept asking me if I was a marathon runner. It was hard to keep the scorn out of my voice when I told them no, I’m just a Bruce Springsteen fan.)

Then it was “Dancing In The Dark, a fairly reviled song on many levels, and definitely one of my lease favorite Bruce songs. BUT I do love it when it’s played during a concert. Since it’s fun to be dancing in the dark with a bunch of crazed Bruce fanatics. (Although they turned on the arena lights for the song, which made Devin a bit peeved. He felt that since it’s called “Dancing In The DARK,” it should be played in the dark. Which I thought was hilarious because Devin doesn’t really like Bruce all that much and yet he was so indignant about the lights being on during that song.)

The concert ended with “American Land” from his Seeger Sessions album. I don’t know the song very well, but they had the lyrics streaming on the huge TV’s so everyone in the arena could sing along (they didn’t do this for any other song). Except my eyesight is not so great, and I couldn’t read the lyrics at all. But that certainly didn’t stop me from enjoying the song.

We were all hoping for a second encore (of course) but it didn’t happen. We’d parked in the BART parking lot not very far from the arena, so we headed back to our truck with a whole lot of people who were going to take BART to their homes. There were police officers everywhere, and Devin said he was surprised there were so many cops out for just one concert, and I told him that it wasn’t because of the concert, it was because it’s Oakland. And Oakland is a scary, scary place. Although we did pass a bum with a most amusing sign that read “Family killed by ninjas. Need money for karate lessons.” I wanted to stop and take a picture but I had enough common sense to know that Oakland was not the place to be taking pictures of bums.

So, the concert was awesome, of course, and I think Devin is a bit closer to being a Bruce fan.

Posted in Bruce!