I HAD AN AWESOME TIME: Rockin' Out: Bruce Springsteen @ Giants Stadium 09/30/09

I really need to start bringing my digital camera to shows because my Blackberry camera is just the pits. Anyway, my friend offered me a ticket to the opening night of The Boss' series of show bidding farewell to New Jersey's Giants Stadium and I gladly accepted. I have a TON of friends who consistently sing the praises of The Boss and his live shows, so I was finally going to see it for myself. I'd seen Bruce Springsteen two times before, but one was a solo acoustic show and the other was when he was on tour for his Pete Seeger covers record, so I had yet to experience the full-on Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band live show. On this particular night, he would be playing Born To Run in its entirety, so that was a big plus as I consider that to be a pretty good album.

We headed to the Giants Stadium parking lot to tailgate for a few hours before the show and even though it was freezing and I was under dressed for the weather, that wound up being one of the highlights of the show. Maybe it was all the hype I've heard over the years from my friends who worship at the altar of Springsteen or maybe it was all the drunken New Jersey-ites in Eli Manning jerseys [I should clarify that I am a huge Washington Redskins fan and therefore hate anything and everything about the New York Giants], but I found the whole experience to be a snoozefest. Bruce Springsteen recently celebrated his 60th birthday, so I give him and the rest of the guys all due credit for still rocking out, but the whole thing just struck me like old guys trying too hard to be younger, rather than embracing their age. I own five Springsteen albums (and enjoy them) and have heard most of the others, so I recognized a healthy majority of the songs, but nothing got me fired up...not even "Atlantic City" which is easily one of my favorite songs of his. I spent most of the show playing on Facebook and texting/BB messengering friends about how boring I thought it was. The best part of the night may have been the conversation with two drunk Joisey women who were standing in front of us in the beer line. They (unsolicited) explained to us that they had just been released from police custody after being detained for (unwittingly) buying beer for minors...and one of them was a school teacher. Classic. The second best part was probably leaving before the encore, so that we wouldn't be stuck in post-concert traffic.

I hold no ill will towards The Boss and won't stop listening to Nebraska because of a bad concert experience, but never again will I bother with seeing him live.

"Dancing In The Dark"