HOMECOMING: SPRINGSTEEN AT THE MEADOWLANDS
"Me and my first band were out in the middle of the country somewhere when we first went out on the road. We were broke and didn't have much money to get back. I remember calling my mom up and she said those magic words: "You can always come home." "
- Bruce Springsteen, in a 1987 interview
There was a revival meeting in the swamps of Jersey last week.
Scores of believers, the haves and the have-nots (as in tickets), gathered in the Mecca of the Meadowlands to listen, to learn, to congregate and celebrate. To have their faith reaffirmed, their hopes realized, their passion restored.
It was the ministry of rock and roll, and preacher Bruce Springsteen - that ultimate poet/storyteller/Jersey-son-made-good - had come home to tend his flock.
"Can I get a witness?" Springsteen shouted in joy to his congregation, and I - along with 20,000 other disciples - raised my hands high in jubilant response.
And we were witnesses, each of us there stomping our feet and thrusting our fists and swaying to a mantra of "Broooose!"; we were witnessing what many of us had hoped for - and some of us were afraid would never happen. We were witnessing - for the first time in ten years - the magic that occurs when the E Street Band come together and make music.
My brothers and I stood shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the band to take the stage. We had done this so many times before - in fact, Mark had pointed out that our very first Bruce concert was during "The River" tour, 19 years ago to the very week - and still, somehow, this was different. We - Bruce, the band, my family, the world - have gone through so many changes, so many turns on the road we all travelled in the past ten years. I can't say for sure, but I felt like maybe we were all trying to come home again, to enjoy ourselves and each other, to hold on to what was there.
The audience- a vagabond gathering of long-time fans and neophytes (including many children of the aforementioned "lifers") - fell into an excited expectant hush as the lights in the arena dimmed approximately 30 minutes after the designated 7:30 show time. Every eye was on the stage as the members of the E-Street Band - the back-up band of Bruce's "Glory Days" who were last seen during the "Tunnel of Love" tour in 1989 - entered. One by one the members of "the world's best bar band" took the stage and applause swelled in the darkened room. Roy, Danny, Garry, Max - each of them, our old friends - waved as they proceeded to their places on the open stage. Some fans wondered how the band was going to use both Little Steven Van Zandt (who left the band in '84) and Nils Lofgren (who replaced Steven on guitar), but all doubts were dispelled when the two guitarists strolled on stage, their arms around each other. Nils, Steven - the whole band, really - were truly "blood brothers in a stormy night with a vow to defend." No surrender, indeed.
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