Not a lot of time this week as I am in final preparation for the Boss coming to town. No, not my wife. She is already here. Nope, it’s the Bruce Springsteen concert, not sure if it’s a farewell tour, but it’s a concert we have been waiting for since, well, the last time he was here which was a very long time ago. I should know, I have the T-shirt and I’m going to wear it. Frays, moth-holes and t-shirt hoarder embarrassment all rolled into one tightly fitting (now) pink package. It’s great to see Bruce coming back the promised land finally.
And I have friends coming into town to see him with me, which is cool. Old friends. Not as old as Bruce. But still old. I think one of them might have been a big baseball player, back in high school (TBH, might have been rugby).
This of course gives me a really convenient excuse to do a meandering blog that is really a meaningless and rambling story – kinda how Bruce weaves tales about his misspent youth with jersey girls during his shows, but all this got me thinking. What has really changed since the last time the Big Man (rest his soul) came through town.
Bruce Springsteen has not been in Calgary since April 13, 2003, which feels like it was a lifetime ago. And it was. It’s sad really, him treating us like we are some kind of badlands.
In 2003, I was 38 years old. Holy cow. I had no kids, was working in professional services for Big Blue (Deloitte), doing the same thing I am doing now (not everything has to change!) and had not yet been blessed (cursed? OK blessed) with kids. The family pet was a whippet-shepherd cross named Sam. And for my birthday that year I got a union card and a winter coat.
The world was still reeling from the after-effects of the 9/11 attacks and the play-list and albums the Boss had out then reflected that somber mood. Looking at the play-list, it was heavily weighted towards The Rising album, which of course at the time I wasn’t really familiar with and that I think we can all agree didn’t come with too many arena-friendly epics. Although the Rising itself rocks.
The concert, played at the then Pengrowth Saddledome, featured terrible acoustics and obnoxious site-lines (couldn’t afford anything better) and, ultimately, although it was Bruce, it was a bit of a muddy mess, even though I got the cool t-shirt. To be fair to Bruce, it’s hard to be a saint when the arena is the seventh circle of hell.
And now here we are 20 years later, waiting for the same guy to play again, this time he’s 74 years old and the concert is one year later than it was supposed to be. The venue is exactly the same except I have learned my lesson and have managed to secure seats that will feature distinguishable sound and maybe more cushioning for my 59 year old tuckus. Although who knows, the set-list this go around has been reading more like a greatest hits so I may be standing around doing the old white guy fist pump while dancing on the dark and scream-singing how “champs like us, baby we were born to run” in unison with a 74 year old dude and a stadium filled with Gen X’rs – all of whom have probably not run for at least five if not ten years.
But figuratively, we will all be there likely feeling rejuvenated by our bad boy poet and rebel musical voice of a generation. We are all hoping he’s on fire, ready to grow young again and not tired and bored with himself.
To be honest, it will be nice to take a break from the events of the last year or so and escape back to a much simpler time, pre 2003, in fact pre-2000, back when we were innocent rubes, eating pizza, drinking beer and playing pool at Gert’s at McGill when the Bruce Springsteen Live CD came out in November of 1986. So that was 38 years ago. Holy cow as they say. I feel like we all have a hungry heart for this show.
It’s also going to be cool to attend the show with some of my closest friends from that time as we make whole the half-cocked plan we hatched in the summer of 2023 – “hey, any of you guys want to fly to Calgary in the dead of winter to see Springsteen?” and enjoy a little darkness on the edge of town? What can I say – this land is your land.
There will be much steak and wine taken care of. Likely a few beers. Too many reminiscences to count. Screen doors slamming. Also getting a Grey Cup in there for shits and giggles – not physically going, although now that I think of it… As they say, you can’t start a fire without a spark. We ain’t beauties but hey, we’re alright.
It’s going to be an epic weekend and a break from all the non-stop US election stuff, although I’d wager that Bruce might have something to say about it. It feels like Santa Claus is comin’ to town,
Hopefully better than the 2003 version.
Anyway, we are all older and wiser now, so maybe we will appreciate it better now, even though in the old days, well, we busted out of class. Had to get away from those fools and we learned more from a three-minute record, than we ever learned in school.
As for what is happening today, in 2024 with Trump, Biden, Harris and US election chaos? Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny.
