Sunday 21 March 2010

My Bruce Journey - Part 11


“I remember how my heart beat when you said’ I love you so’”


We still hadn’t got the hang of finding out about concert tickets so didn’t know about the 2003 stadium tour until it was too late.

There were no tickets left for Old Trafford and in those days we didn’t consider trying anywhere else except our nearest venue.

This disaster prompted me to get onto the internet to find a fan club.  I thought there must be something out there to help me get advance tickets or at the very least advance notice of tickets.

As we all know there is no fan club to be found but there is an unlimited amount of Springsteen stuff out there.  Finding the right fan site for me wasn’t easy but I plumped for Backstreets.

I discovered from the web that I did not need to remember set lists as they were readily available along with endless discussions about how good or bad they were!!  In fact almost anything I wanted to know about Bruce was discussed dissected and argued about - but no tickets for Old Trafford.

I was on ticketmaster every day - the eternal optimist - but Mike who has a more pessimistic streak didn’t think we had any chance of getting tickets.

One Sunday afternoon when Mike had gone for a nap because he had a headache I managed to get two tickets.  I was desperate to wake him up to tell him but managed to resist.

The seats turned out to be at the back - the very back - and on a cricket ground that is a long way.  Well over the boundary rope - even Freddie Flintoff couldn’t hit the ball that far!  The up side was I could stand up without anyone getting annoyed behind me.  The obvious downside was the stage was so far away.  It didn’t bother me though.  We so nearly weren’t there at all - not only because of our ticket problem but because of this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2897075.stm

Old Trafford cricket ground is (or was in 2003) a quaint little place - sort of run down in an old fashioned English kind of way as you would expect a cricket ground to be.

It was a blazing hot day and I seem to remember getting into the ground quite early.  We had bottles of water to avoid the dehydration but these were taken off us as we went in.  There were plenty of stand pipes but we had no receptacle.  We had to buy a pint and save the glass (plastic).

We hardly ever see anybody we know when we go out.  Concerts, football matches holidays we don’t see folks we know.  Those stories you hear about people travelling half way round the world and finding their neighbour in the hotel room next to them? - doesn’t happen to us.  (Well it didn’t happen to us but watch this space for a later story).  But this day we actually saw a person we knew.  Not sure if he was actually a Springsteen fan - got the impression he might have been there on a freebie.

This was our first outdoor Bruce concert and because it was such a lovely day we really enjoyed it.  So did Damon Gough judging by this…. http://www.superherobook.com/files/300.pdf

I went crazy at the intro to ‘Loose Ends’ although clearly no one around me had a clue what it was.  This was the first time I got a rarity that I love AND appreciated what it was - perhaps it was the first concert where I was more or less fully clued up with everything Bruce had officially recorded.  He didn’t sing anything I didn’t know which was a first!

We were now beginning to feel like real fans having been to four concerts.  Of course we didn’t realise that there were people out there that had been to 104 - and that was only on this tour!

We had no more dates planned so off home to wait for what turned out to be Devils and Dust.

Set List

Born In The USA (acoustic)
The Rising
Lonesome Day
Candy's Room
Prove It All Night
Darkness On The Edge Of Town
Empty Sky
You're Missing
Waitin' On A Sunny Day
Two Hearts
Loose Ends
Worlds Apart
Badlands
Out In The Street
Mary's Place
Meeting Across The River
Jungleland
Into The Fire
Thunder Road
4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
Bobby Jean
Ramrod
Born To Run
Seven Nights To Rock
My City Of Ruins
Land Of Hope And Dreams
Dancing In The Dark

No comments:

Post a Comment