[jingram058]

When I saw Springsteen in 1981, on The River Tour, the concert was over 3 hours. After Thunder Road, the house lights came on, and he announced they were going to take a break and come back and "rock all night". They did an entire 2nd set, with 3 separate encores ending with the Detroit Medley. My tickets were ground floor of the Mid-South Coliseum about 30 rows back. Not the pit, but could see and hear everything. Those tickets cost $10. I still have one of the stubs, and a program I bought. There were no added singers or horn players. Just the E Street Band. I thought then and still think it was maybe the best concert I ever went to, and I am a guy who went to A LOT of concerts. Stones, The Who, Zeppelin, you name them. If they came to Memphis back then, and back then everyone did, I went. Except Led Zeppelin, I saw them in Chicago and that's another story.

I decided this time around, after 42 years, I wanted to see him with the E Street Band one more time. I saw the weirdness with Ticketmaster first hand when the tickets were announced. First, I had to get through a lottery just to be able to buy tickets. Somehow I got through that. Then purchasing the tickets was crazy; tickets that disappeared, tickets that rose in price right before your eyes, all of that. Finally I got 2 tickets that came to $200 change each after fees and tax. Yes, more than $10 in 1981, but in line with what it costs to see any name act today. Not $2000 in the pit, or any other horror stories, but reasonable, given what it costs to see or do practically anything today.

Then came the show the other night. When I bought the tickets I looked up Hard Rock Live at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino, Hollywood, Florida. It was stated that there are no bad seats in the house, and the acoustics are perfect. It lived up to that. The seats in the 2nd balcony (3rd floor) were perfect, like IMAX seating, very comfortable and yes, because of how Hard Rock Live is built, you can see and hear everything. There were 10 or 12 good looking 20-something girls who all came together in the row in front of us. They were up dancing from the first song, No Surrender, to the final acoustic encore song by Springsteen solo, I'll See You Tonight In My Dreams. I don't know where they got the energy to do that for 3 straight hours, but it in no way bothered us because of the IMAX-like structure. Plus the rows are far enough apart that you can go take a leak without tripping over or bothering anyone to do it. Hard Rock Live also has gigantic (colossal) big screen HD monitors to left and right of the stage, so you can see as if you're in the pit no matter where you are.

I feel the E Street Band is the best band around. I used to feel the same about The Heartbreakers, but now with Tom Petty gone, they are no more. I thought there was no way the E Street Band could go on without Danny Federici, and most especially The Big Man, Clarence Clemons. Jake Clemons, Clarence's nephew, make no mistake, is The New Big Man. He wails on the sax like Clarence, and the banter and interplay between him and Springsteen is now like how it was.

The concert was 3 hours long, 7:45 to 10:45 PM, practically non stop. Bruce was in truly rare form for whatever reason. The whole band was. Everyone seemed totally into it, and the audience was also, on their feet for 3 hours. Bruce's voice was time-warp, sounding like 30 or 40 years ago. I was astounded by that. I also noticed that he gave away his harmonica after every number that included one. They did every single song I could have wanted to hear, even the Sad Eyes in the middle of Backstreets. The thing that has always been the thing about the E Street Band is that they actually sound better live than on record. Very, very few bands or performers can do that.

So that's it. An experience just as memorable as 1981. Quite different, but equally great. I have a bootleg of the 1981 concert, and I listened to it last night. Raw and incredible, start to finish. I will download February 7, 2023 at Hard Rock Live just as soon as it becomes available.