Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Kissing the single life goodbye at Hershey tonight with Bruce

Tonight marks my 39th Bruce Springsteen show.

I actually bought tickets to numbers 39 and 40 during the most recent onsale, then the fiancé and I decided that we couldn't miss that much school and gave the Hershey Park tickets to my parents.

Then a bit of a family emergency struck and we realized we weren't going to make it to the Mohegan Sun show, and my parents, knowing what Bruce has meant to me, offered us the Hershey tickets back. The fiancé now couldn't make it on a weeknight, so it's me and my dad making the drive tonight.

Which I think serves as a great bookend to a certain era of my life.

My journey with Bruce shows began eleven years ago in Richmond on the Rising tour. My brother had suggested that we get my dad Bruce tickets for Father's Day the year before, but we never managed to get our acts together on that. And his birthday was in February, so the following year, I found excessively over-priced secondary market tickets (I didn't know any better yet!) for behind the stage in Richmond. My brother couldn't go, my mother didn't want to on a school night, and so dad and I went alone.

I was still in school. We left after my last class of the day, driving down in my father's car, joking that as we arrived in his BMW convertible, I looked like his midlife crisis wife or girlfriend, not his daughter. We listened to a compilation of songs I had put together based on recent setlists and I remember my father joking that we were passing "the part of town where when you hit a red light you don't stop." And I asked him what song he most wanted to hear that night. He named "For You," which we knew was a long shot.


I was in one of many rough patches that year.  I had fallen out with my entire crew when my best friend of the last six years and I stopped talking. It was that relationship, not a boyfriend, that inspired Beyond the Palace a few years later. That's the one relationship in my life that left a permanent scar. And even now, it aches to remember that loss. It was necessary to cut each other loose, but I was lost after that for a very long time.

But something in me clicked that night when the lights went down. For the first time, I felt something that fed that "hunger you can't resist" that Bruce sings about. I know the people who haven't felt that are shaking their heads at me, but the ones who have are nodding. And I know they're out there because I've met them over the last eleven years. I've made some amazing friends because I discovered that there were other people who felt the same loneliness that I was engulfed in and who felt it lessened with each show. They are the rabid fans who can pick themselves out in the videos, who were there when I danced on stage in Charlottesville, who read Beyond the Palace and who wanted desperately for me to be Laura, not understanding that the reason they connected with the book wasn't because I was Laura, but because I was Ben.



At first, it was me and my dad because it was our thing. My brother had annual ski trips with him, but the concerts were mine. My Uncle Mike joined us from time to time and started being my date to shows dad couldn't make it to. He was the "real fan" in the family, with more than 200 shows under his belt, and I remember his friends quizzing me on lyrics and classic shows on the drive up to Shea Stadium in 2003 before deeming me worthy of the ticket my uncle shared with me. I treasure the memories of my shows with him as much as those with my dad. It created a bond between us that is unshakeable, and he is responsible for some of my favorite concert memories and a few key scenes in Beyond the Palace as well. And he claims that it's in his will that I inherit his Bruce collection, because I'll appreciate it more than my cousins could.
Uncle Mike in his "Born to Run" shirt, holding me as a baby

In 2008, I was in another of those impossibly rough patches. I was drowning at school, and it was just months after we lost my Uncle Jules, to whom Beyond the Palace is dedicated. He gave me a typewriter when I was eight years old and told me I should be a writer. And losing him hit the whole family with the destructive force of a hurricane. I did a double header of shows that August, going back to Richmond with some friends and then skipping the first day back at school for teachers to go to Hershey Park with my dad. And as was now our tradition, we picked the song we most wanted to hear. We had luck with "For You" at that first show, and even "Santa Ana" in 2005, which will be the song my dad and I will dance to at my wedding, as the "giants of science" line has always reminded me of him. But that night was my 20th show, dad's 10th, and somehow we hadn't seen "Jungleland" yet. And at the opening notes that night, I began to cry. It was one of the most cathartic moments of my life. It was the first time in a long time that I could believe things would again be okay. And my dad put his arm around me without saying a word; without needing to, because he understood.



As this most recent tour began, for the first time since March 6, 2003, I don't feel that deep-seated need to be at as many shows as possible. Maybe I've grown up a bit. Maybe it's because I finally have found that connection that Bruce has always said the characters in his songs are seeking.

Or maybe it's just been too long since my last show and I'll come home tonight and cry because my Mohegan Sun tickets are gone. I've warned the fiancé that that is a distinct possibility.

Thank you to my mother, for giving up your ticket to let me go with dad tonight. It's my last show that I'll attend with him while I still bear his last name. And while I'm sure there are more shows in our future, there's something magical to me in getting to go to this show with him.

And Bruce, if you're reading (hey, a girl can dream, right?), the song I want to hear most is "Sandy." It's what my parents will walk me down the aisle to next month as I begin this next chapter of my life.



Thank you everyone who has been a part of this ride, and I can't wait to start the next stage, where I can introduce you to my new husband at shows!  And I'll see you all further on up the road.