A Visit with The Boss

I couldn't decide whether to title this post "A Visit with The Boss" or "Largest Gathering of Middle-Aged White People Dancing in Their Seats Ever," so I opted for the more politically-correct one.

Nonetheless, Erica and I went to see Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen in concert on Saturday night. Bruce was an hour late, the tickets were $95 a piece for balcony seats, there were no other folks there our age, and IT WAS THE BEST SHOW I'VE EVER SEEN. Seriously. Bruce was incredible. It was no wonder that it was sold out, cramped, and that no one complained that he was almost an hour late. It was worth it when he took the stage and sang "Darlington County." He played every song off his new album, Magic, which is his first studio release with the E Street Band in five years. There's a reason why the E Street Band is regarded as the best band of the last thirty years. A violin, two guitars, Max Weinberg (Conan O'Brein!) on the drums, a sax (THE sax, I should say), an accordion, an two guitars, which all come together to deliver an unrelenting, non-stop show of musical brilliance. Ok, enough on that. Here are some pictures from the show.







This one is from our seats.



Here we are during the concert. Notice the earplugs. It was 150 decibels in that place.

We were easily the youngest people in the crowd, besides a few stray teenagers who were coerced into attending by their parents. A number of boomers talked to us and expressed their surprise and excitement that people as young as us would come see Bruce. "We grew up on this stuff" they said, to which we replied "well, so did we." We might have saved them some shock by driving a spaceship. We have found it's much easier to avoid explaining our musical preferences to fellow concert goers, as we frequently find ourselves in awkward discussions with some strange folks.

And, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, I will contend that this was the single greatest gathering of middle-aged white people gyrating in their seats to ever assemble in the galaxy. Hands down. Erica and I played a game of trying to find someone of a different race before the show -- we found two African Americans and four people who looked to be from India. That was it. There were 60,000 people there.