Party at Bruce's Place

Last night Bruce Springsteen and 20,000 of his closest friends in New Jersey had a party in the Izod Center in the Meadowlands.

The thing about Bruce is, to anyone who has not ever seen him live, he seems like a cliché. I can say this, because before 1995, I was one of those people. It's probably irritating to folks who have never seen the Springsteen phenomena to hear about people trying to get tickets to every show, putting everything aside in their schedules to get to the shows, traveling across country, trading their first born for tickets. In New Jersey, it's kind of a given that many of the fans will get to most if not all of the shows he does in the area. This is why scalpers can get $2,000 (yes, you read that correctly) for a ticket in the GA standing area.

There are people, of course, who are not fans of any kind of rock, who would sooner leave their new car unlocked on the street with the keys in the ignition than spend $90 and up for a ticket to a stadium concert. Some of those people did see Springsteen play the Super Bowl, and many of those people have started thinking, "I gotta see that guy."

It is the nature of well presented music to be a brain-eraser. No matter how mad you are at your boss, how worried you are about money, how sad you are about your breakup, there comes a point that you cease to be a disembodied spirit and find you have gotten over your sorry self and are connecting with the performers on the stage.

With Springsteen, it happens dramatically: you feel an electrical charge and you're smiling, another one and you can't help but giggle, then you're raising your arms because Bruce has directed you to do so and blowing out your voice singing along to Born to Run, even though you only know about ten words of the lyrics.

Bruce will be back in New Jersey in the Fall to play Giants' Stadium one last time before they tear it down. Now that Ticketmaster has had their hands slapped for last January's ticket debaucle, maybe we'll get to see the show.