Elmont Night 1…

I'm not usually one to post reviews, but given the circumstances surrounding this tour and my hard to fathom personal angst tied to all things Springsteen, I thought I'd take a crack at it.

Ok...so first off, I was there by virtue of having occasional work at UBS and a bit of luck to be on that night. So, while not in a seat, I saw or heard pretty much the whole show. I also wanted to let some time pass from show day to see how I felt a few days after the event itself

So here is my revue:

I was in the building early and still had odd feelings about it all...but then I heard some of the sound check. Mary's Place first and it was sounding really really good...then they did Seven Nights to Rock, a cover that's totally in my wheelhouse of stuff I enjoy. That's the moment I started feeling truly excited...hair tingling on the back of my neck type excited.

An hour or so later the doors were opened and the crowd started filtering in. Once again I was caught up in the moment....these are my people!!

Then it was showtime. I won't even attempt to go song by song, but Bruce was sounding good and the Band...the Mighty E Street Band, augmented by the added horns, back up singers etc sounded quite phenomenal.

No chatter from Bruce, no PSA (thank you!) and not much if any stops between songs. I described it to an Usher that was a fan as being like a runaway train...a good rockin' high octane runaway train....from Bruce to the Band and an enthusiastic crowd, it was a truly fantastic musical experience. My anger and disappointment about the ticket mess and crap response disappated as the tunes continued to get pumped out.

It was a great great show!!

So....now the post show part...I could probably drone on in an attempt to explain my personal feelings...but I won't.

I'll just say that the music is still the music...and that music was and still is over the top fantastic. But after some time and reflection, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not likely to ever feel quite like I once did for Bruce the man. Sadly, I think Bruce is just fine with that....maybe he once cared about the diehards like me and many others or maybe it was all part of the act that he no longer needs to perpetuate. Like shaking up setlists nightly or not charging ridiculous prices for the privilege of seeing a show...Bruce no longer needs to care about stuff like that, so he simply doesn't.

To me he's becoming like other artists whose music I love....but really didn't care much about beyond that music. He's Bob Seger...great music and that's were it ends.

But damn...it was fun while it lasted...and I still have that music.