Springsteen on Broadway

I attended my first Springsteen concert in December 1995 at Constitution Hall. I did not love it. This was “The Ghost of Tom Joad” tour, promoting Springsteen’s darkest album with its bleak lyrics and quiet, haunting music. I’ve still never come to appreciate the album fully the way that many big fans have but it’s beyond question that it wasn’t the right introduction to the Springsteen concert experience.

My second concert, the reunion tour at Madison Square Garden in 1999, was exactly that introduction. All the cliches applied- I was transformed and transfixed, and I left the arena exhausted but hopeful. I had seen something special. I resolved that day that Bruce would never play a stand in my current home area without me taking in a show, and I’ve stayed true to that these past two decades.

I mention these dueling experiences because I wasn’t fully sure of what to expect at “Springsteen on Broadway.” Would it be the dark, quiet meditation of “Joad,” which offered important themes and very deep meaning to ponder but to me ultimately felt like medicine? Or would it reflect the euphoric, life-changing magic of a full Springsteen concert?

A theme of last night’s show was the magic tricks that Bruce performs, and last night was a new one. He filled the show with deep, emotionally powerful anecdotes that left me crying or on the verge of tears at least five times while also offering the life-affirming, rocking anthems that have marked his career. It’s undoubtedly different to hear “Tenth Avenue Freezeout” in a venue of 1,000 rather than 80,000. It still makes you smile, but you can feel every lyric and where Bruce was as a person when he wrote them.

Bruce opens the show by promising to explore the question that has confounded me many times: How does he do it? The first song in this autobiographical melding of spoken word and song is “Growin Up,” Bruce’s anthem about the same. Bruce then explores his relationships with his father and his mother in powerful detail, turning to some lesser known but equally powerful songs to tell their stories.

Bruce told the tale of how he’s a fraud, having never held a working class job in his life but choosing to tell the stories of working class people throughout his career. This bit of self deprecation leads to a Bruce revelation that floored me in the book and in person: he created a stage persona that reflected how he saw the best version of his alcoholic, clinically depressed, factory-working father. He said that’s what children do with those who deny them the love they so desperately needed them- they emulate them to plant a stake for the love they were wrongfully denied. I once again felt very lucky to have had my wonderful, loving father, and I wondered how people like me who didn’t have Bruce’s experience process that most important relationship.

From the intimate, family portrait we moved to the open road and the story of the challenges and promises of America. “Promised Land” might have been the highlight of the entire show for me. In this setting, the uplifting anthem about triumphing over darkness and desperation felt particularly poignant.

Hearing this verse, it captured how I feel right now better than any other art could:

“I’ve done my best to live the right way
I get up every morning and go to work each day
But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold
Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode
Explode and tear this town apart
Take a knife and cut this pain from my heart
Find somebody itching for something to start.”

But only two verses later, after diagnosing the disease, Bruce offers the cure:

“There’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor
I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm
Gonna be a twister to blow everything down
That ain’t got the faith to stand its ground
Blow away the dreams that tear you apart
Blow away the dreams that break your heart
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted.”

The message of course is to lean into the darkness and the existential challenges causing them, and put your faith, hope, and love in the fact that what truly matters will survive the storm and the rest will wash away.

That would be the theme of the remainder of the night, from a haunting acoustic version of “Born in the USA” through the show-closing “Born to Run.” There is always darkness, and we live in a particularly dark and bleak time in our history, but those are the moments when turning to the tools we’ve been given — family, faith, music — are most essential. To paraphrase Bruce’s comment last night, when things seem darkest, that’s when you need to put on your dancing shoes.

And dance we did. I am happy to celebrate Ticketmaster’s new Verified Fan procedures, which resulted in this very real fan paying face value to sit in the fourth row. I’ve never been do close to my hero and I likely never will be again. Behind us was J.J. Abrams and to our left were Sarah Paulson and Pedro Pascal (the Red Viper!) just experiencing the same joy that we did on a Saturday night.

It’s been an incredibly hard year. My mind has gone to darker places than it ever has in my 42 years on this planet. Last night, my long distance best friend and spiritual guide invited me into what felt like his kitchen to listen to stories and some songs for a few hours. He made me pump my fist, laugh, and cry, but he also reminded me that I have the strength to make it through the darkness and come out stronger the other side. That, as he said, history is not written yet, even as we survive this particularly dark time together.

Thanks again, Bruce, for the gift you keep giving me. To confirm, no one has ever found a better traveling companion that they will never meet.