It being past midnight here on the east coast in the US, it is now November 14, my mother's birthday. It was 3 years ago that I last saw Bruce in concert. I was one of the extremely lucky ones who had the opportunity to buy tickets for the first few weeks of Springsteen on Broadway. The day before tickets went on sale, I thought about which date I would try for. I live only a couple hours from NYC, and I'm retired, so I decided to go for a weekday. I assumed weekends and the first couple weeks would be the dates most requested (could be wrong). Looking over the calendar, I spotted Tuesday Nov 14, Ma's birthday. Seemed lucky to me. It was. Got in fairly quickly, and scored a pair of seats upstairs. Then I called my mother. Yes, she was still alive and I wasn't going to drive a couple hours in the opposite direction to see her on her birthday. And no, I'm not an asshole. She was coming to town to visit with my sisters and I a few days after her birthday, so I wasn't going to see her on her big day anyway. She was more than aware of my Bruce obsession, and was really happy to hear I used her day for good luck. It turned out to be her last. I hope, and sometimes fear, that I'll see my 89th birthday like she did.
Anyway, the show was great, you all know that. Not really worth describing. But 3 years...damn. So when and where was your last show?
Jan 27th 2016 .....Approaching 5 years like a Burnin' Train 😥
Adelaide 2017. When he railed against Trump's anti immigration stance with a speech and a second on the set version of American Land. (First was the at the time obligatory NYCS. As great as that was, perhaps he could've played it later. If he'd opened with his 30 second speech and launched into that American Land/Ties/No Surrender/LOHAD/Trapped sequence, it would've been tremendous).
Other highlights included the hilarious Brown Eyed Girl segment with the folks dressed up as The Honeymooners, and a sublime Racing In The Street which to my ears was one of the best of recent times. (I thought maybe it was just me lost in the moment, but a discussion in our old home regarding great versions of Racing included some people who mentioned Adelaide 17 as a worthy one based on the Nugs recording alone so I felt vindicated).
I have a funny (or tragic, depending on perspective) story about Boss On Broadway also. In February 2018, my wife and I booked and paid for our dream family holiday to the US. 3 and a half weeks from mid September to early October. We were visiting San Francisco, New York, Washington DC, Las Vegas, then Anaheim for the Disney bit before finishing in LA. Bruce at that stage had not booked any late 2018 Broadway shows.
As luck would have it, our 5 day pre booked stay in NY fell dead centre in the middle of Bruce's eventual two and a half week break from Broadway. So I got some cool photos of me in front of the bright SOB lights outside the closed Walter Kerr theatre, and that was it.
As an aside, one of my favourite bits of the trip was our Lux bus journey from Vegas to Anaheim in LA. 'Geeze, I hope I see a Joshua tree on the trip' I said beforehand. LOL, that's all I saw for the first hour or so. But again the Bruce spirit had deserted me. Less than a year later he released what would've been the perfect soundtrack to me dreamily staring out of the bus windows at the magnificent passing western (stars) US landscape.
Of course it's a story worth telling. I am sorry it turned out to be your mum's last birthday, but she brought you a bit of luck!
My last time was Broadway too - 20th October, so a few weeks before you. We had a trip to the US all planned and booked when the Broadway run was announced, looked at dates and decided the only date we could do without too much disruption to the rest of the trip was 20th October. It was impossible to get tickets, as if you recall, the whole verified fan thing did not accept European phone numbers first time around! We kept an eye on Stubhub etc and I clearly remember being out for lunch with a friend when Mr J phoned to say two tickets had come up and were 'not too expensive!'. We bought those and had a great night, a perfect end to a great holiday.