Transfixed By The Boss

Tuesday night, Bruce Springsteen shook my hand, gave me a nod and said, "thank you." After the church service at the Walter Kerr Theatre-Bruce Springsteen on Broadway, I left my second row pew on the edge of the sacred altar with a shit-ass grin, my beautiful reward, forty-years after my first Bruce concert in 1978 at MSG. I wrote about that show on my Yorkville Stoops to Nuts blog. Here you go... Thank you, fellow altar boy, Joe Dettmore, for serving High Mass with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch…
Yesterday, I heard Don McLean's, "American Pie."
The opening lyrics reflected my mood about live music in 1978.
"A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died."
That summer in 1978, I went to a Bad Company concert, and sat through it like a work meeting. Bored. I was leading up to that, the last few live shows I attended made me feel the same way. Empty. I felt I'd lost my musical inspiration.

That August, Yvette & I saw Bruce Springsteen for the first time at MSG. Two hours early, we split an eight pack of seven ounce Miller nips, while we sat on the 32nd St. entrance steps watching traffic and rating girls & boys as they rushed home to Long Island.
Inside, the energy was electric but I didn't know why, yet. Then the band took the stage and ripped into "Badlands." It felt like 1964, I was ten years old again, watching all the girl groups on the Clay Cole Show, watching Roy Orbison singing "Crying," and "Pretty Woman." It didn't matter it was a crappy little TV, those artists week after week tore my heart open, moved in, bought furniture and never left. Springsteen woke everybody up in there, and they haven't left me since 1978.
The next night, I went back to MSG alone, and bought a $6 ticket for $15 from a scalper. Starting from my blue heaven seat, I ended up in the third row in the orchestra by the third song and stayed there crouched on the floor between two girls for the entire show including the three encores.
Tons of great shows followed: John Hiatt, J Geils Band, Pater Wolf, Elvis Costello, Shawn Colvin, Lucinda Williams, Jonatha Brooke, Mary Lee's Corvette, Syd Straw, The Losers Lounge, Yo Lo Tengo, Bruce Cockburn, Garland Jeffreys, Roxy Music, and on... The day I die, tickets for my next live show will be in my dresser.
Somebody pick them up... Don't waste them!


old photos by Jeff Havas, now photo by Joe Dettmore.