The mister and I snagged two tickets to see Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band perform at Madison Square Garden next month. For my money, there's no better live performance out there, even though the vagaries of Ticketmaster are such that we're spending good cash to watch the back of the Boss' head for three plus hours. This will be the fifth time I've seen Bruce perform live -- the third at MSG.
Born in the U.S.A. was the first album I ever bought. Not in CD format; not even in tape. Vinyl
, baby. In 1984, courtesy of my soon-to-be-stepmom (who, at 28, was old enough to fund my nascent record habit but young enough to turn me on to music way cooler in my eyes than anything either of my parents would recommend), I was the proud new owner of a record whose jacket boast the bluejeans-clad arse of an all-American man:
I listened to it until it scratched and warped. I accompanied him, singing off-key until I'm sure my parents were sick of it. (Although, in retrospect, this probably paled in comparison to the nausea-inducing weeks during which they endured marathon sing-along sessions involving my younger sister and me alternatively butchering Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All" and belting out the entire soundtrack of Les Misérables.)
Becoming a Bruce fan at the ripe old age of eight may not have been particularly subversive when you consider that most of my classmates at the time were bopping out to Madonna's Like A Virgin:
, baby. In 1984, courtesy of my soon-to-be-stepmom (who, at 28, was old enough to fund my nascent record habit but young enough to turn me on to music way cooler in my eyes than anything either of my parents would recommend), I was the proud new owner of a record whose jacket boast the bluejeans-clad arse of an all-American man:I listened to it until it scratched and warped. I accompanied him, singing off-key until I'm sure my parents were sick of it. (Although, in retrospect, this probably paled in comparison to the nausea-inducing weeks during which they endured marathon sing-along sessions involving my younger sister and me alternatively butchering Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All" and belting out the entire soundtrack of Les Misérables.)
Becoming a Bruce fan at the ripe old age of eight may not have been particularly subversive when you consider that most of my classmates at the time were bopping out to Madonna's Like A Virgin:
But -- subversive or no -- I loved it. And the passion for the Boss and his music has stuck. I'm a fan to this day. It's one thing to continue to hold dear a book or a painting that touched you when you were young. But the Bruce Springsteen catalog -- both with and without the E Street Band -- keeps growing and delighting me. So next month's concert should be a real treat.
Allowing myself this sort of thing to look forward to is what makes slogging through the everyday bearable.
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