Baby, I was Born to Run.

I was at The Richmond Arms waiting for an old friend when I got a call from Doreen. This was very unusual, as it was only about 5:30, and she was probably still at work. She said that someone had given her tickets to the Bruce Springsteen concert that was at the Toyota Center that night, and should we go? It took about 2 seconds to say “yes” even though that meant that I had to have just one quick beer with my friend (Sorry Marty)

Oddly enough, I had been talking to my sister Jeannette here in town, and she said that she was going to the concert as well! We tried to coordinate meeting before and during the concert, but the tickets we had did come with some strings attached, so that plan fell through.

Everything else fell into place. Doreen drove down to get the tickets and then came home to pick me up. We got downtown about 7:40 or so, and found a place to park on the street. We walked over to the Toyota center in the brisk (really!) spring air and got in line to enter.

So why do women bring purses to these things? I mean, they have to check every bag (for weapons? Cameras? Booze?) before letting you in, causing a queue at the door. Then they have to find a place to put them down while they rock out. What is wrong with pockets?

We wandered around until we found our seats (Section 120, row 10, seats 1 and 2) and found out that we had our own beer vendors, food and bathrooms in this area! Great. We each grabbed a hotdog (Doreen got chili cheese, I got mine straight) a beer and had a snack before the show started.

Once we got inside we realized how good these seats were. We were at about midcourt, 10 rows up from the floor. The stage was where the hoop would be. So we were seated just a bit above the stage, and not too far away.

We ran into one of Doreen’s board members (Not associated with the free tickets) and someone I knew from when I worked at Input/Output. We then settled in for the show.

He started about 8:15 or so, and it was pure out rock and roll. He started with some stuff from new albums (which I am not familiar with) and then had a ton of songs from his old ones. I felt like I was 18 again sitting in my brother Mark’s apartment in Madison when I was visiting from Appleton. It was LOUD and your chest just thumped with the bass. It has been a long time since I have heard that.

He played a bunch of the songs I hoped he work – the E Street Shuffle, Rosalita (come out tonight), Thunder Road, Because the Night, Born to Run, 10th Avenue Freeze Out. He ended with a pro-immigrant Irish drinking song., after bringing Alejandro Escovedo and Joe Ely one stage for one song each. It was quite a night.