Lost my BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!!!!! virginity last week at Hersheypark Stadium, seeing BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!!!!! and the E Street Band for the first time, ever.
Now, the above graph is not entirely true. I had seen the troubador of the Jersey Shore once before, but he wasn’t BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!!!!! then. He was just Bruce Springsteen, and the E Street Band, while pretty much in its present day form, had yet to gain that title.
I’m in debt to my colleague, John Duffy, for filling in a couple blanks in his advance on the BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!!!!! show at Hershey, giving me a new understanding of what I experienced way back in 1973.
June 6, 1973. Riding a way of immense popularity, the band Chicago is booked into the Spectrum in Philadelphia in support of their newest release, Chicago VI.
On the undercard, billed as a “Special Guest”, is an unknown named Bruce Springsteen.
Bruce comes out and, in what Philadelphia Daily News music critic Jonathon Takiff will refer to as one of the most shameful moments in Philly music history, is booed unmercifully!
How could this happen? Isn’t Bruce a near-god in Philly?
One has to go back several months.
From John Duffy’s remembrance of a Bruce show at York College in November of ‘72, we get a picture of Bruce and the E-Streeters, their sound equipment pretty bare-bones, playing small clubs and college gyms.
Their act is energy-driven. And loud. And, according to reviews of the time, it works.
Now imagine it’s early ‘73. Columbia Records, having signed Bruce, recently released his debut album and looking for a way to promote him, turns the task over to the geniuses in A&R.
We can almost see the Montgomery Burns-Smithers meeting in the record exec’s office:
“We’ve got this hippie-poet-Dylan type, what’s his name: Stringbean?
“That’s Springsteen, sir. Bruce Springsteen.”
“What? Oh. We’ve got to get the word out on this album: Meetings In Raspberry Park.”
“That’s Greetings From Asbury Park, sir.”
“Right. We’ve got to get him on the road and push sales. Who do we have touring this summer?”
“Well, sir, there’s Chicago.”
“Good. Good. We’ll have Stringbean open for Chicago. It’ll be synergy.”
“That’s Springsteen, sir.”
Flash forward to the Spectrum, June 6.
This may or may not have been Springsteen’s first large-arena gig. It was certainly his first in the Spectrum. It was not a good pairing.
Nor was pairing Bruce with Chicago. There is a great crossover in fan bases now, but Chicago fans seldom greet warmly someone who is keeping them from their heroes.
In 1983, at the Mann Music Center, Chicago fans will be so rude to opening act John Stewart [… people out there turnin’ music into gold … ], that he will stop the show and remind them that he’s going to play whether they, the fans, like it or not. So they might as well shut up and enjoy the show.
Bruce was not that feisty.
That night, overwhelmed by the Spectrum’s acoustics, the band was loud and unintelligible. Their sound was so much noise. Bruce’s singing, now revered, was way beyond noise.
On a first date that night with the young lady who would, two years later, become my wife, I was not impressed.
Months later, my college-age and musically hip friends would extoll this hot, new artist: Bruce Springsteen.
“Bruce Springsteen?” I would answer. “I saw him. He sucks!”
Bruce released The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle that September. It sold, but didn’t break records.
Two years later, two days after my wedding and on my 24th birthday, Bruce releases Born To Run.
The rest is history.
He appears on the covers of both Newsweek and Time Magazines the same week.
Unprecedented.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!!!!! is born.
I became a fan. Never saw him though, until now.
From the opening drum riff of Badlands to the closing chords of Bobby Jean, Bruce and E Street were awesome!
Played three hours, including a one-hour, seven-song encore that blew way past Hershey/Derry Township’s 11 p.m. curfew.
And, from the opening drum riff of Badlands to the end of Bobby Jean, 18-year old drummer Jay Weinberg, was outstanding!
Substituting for his father, Max Weinberg, [who likely was stuck in California with his “day job”, leading Conan O’Brien’s house band, the Max Weinberg 7] Jay Weinberg drives the band forward.
He. Never. Stopped.
And reaches his peak in a bravura performance in the middle of the encore, on Land Of Hope and Dreams, when he practically bounces out of his seat while keeping the beat.
If his dad’s not careful …
And if dad’s stuck in L.A. when the tour crosses the Atlantic for the its European leg, 18-year-old Jay Weinberg will be drumming for the E Street Band.
In Europe.
In summer.
How cool is that!!
Class, please write a theme: What I did on my summer vacation.
Yes, Mr. Weinberg?
