Surprise surprise surprise

Bruce Springsteen is 70.

 

Do East Coast sports writers get the day off for their national holiday?

 

I bought great tickets for his first show after he turned 50. The only time I have ever paid above face for his shows but it was a present to myself for turning 30 a couple of days before. It was at the First Union arena in Philly. The idea was that he was going to play the First Union Center, move across the parking lot to the Spectrum one last time (the day before he turned 50) and then a few days later would wrap the stand up back at the new arena.

Turns out the show at the Spectrum got postponed a couple of days so he did the post-birthday show there. We were super bummed and figured our show would be ho hum. It ended up being one of my favorite concerts he did — opened up with Incident on 57th Street for the first time in about 20 years and just knocked the cover off of the ball all night.

Now I’m 50 and he’s still going strong.

 

My favorite of his:

 

Saw him once at FedEx Field in like 2004. Most memorable things about the concert:
1. He did some inverted mike stand, which was pretty impressive
2. He railed against Dick Cheney for like 20 minutes

That's it

 

Wow. He had just turned 25 when I saw him last, at Memorial Gym in Charlottesville in Nov., 1974. I think Vinny Lopez had just been replaced on the drums. He said the working title for his next album was "Jungleland," which he played. Great show, for $5.

 

The Seventies. The last really good decade in this country.

 

Not just east coast writers.