WARNING! This post contains whiny-ass Baby Boomer musings from a 70-year old individual who saw Bob Dylan & the Hawks live in 1966; The Doors and The Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1968; The Who in 1969; and Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band in 1978 on the Darkness On The Edge Of Town tour, and can’t seem to EVER let ANY of us forget it.
Okay, facts are facts: I’m 70 years old, the first time I saw Bruce Springsteen was in April 1976 when I was 23 years old. As pictured here, that show was $5 a ticket, 70 cents in service fees; $10.70, 2 tickets. (note; Mike Musgrave was a buddy of mine at Service Merchandise. I was on vacation when those tickets went on sale and Mike picked me up two before the show sold out. I haven’t seen or heard from him in 45 years, but to this day; thank you, Mike.)
Last week tickets went on sale for Bruce’s 2023 American shows and some tickets cost $4000. (I would try to figure out that percentage increase, but if I wanted to do math I never would have picked up a guitar and attempted for decades to become a rock & roll star.) (And yeah, I fully realize that NOT ALL the tickets were $4000, but as long as even ONE was, it’s problematic.)
Let’s get it straight: I do not begrudge ANY musician – from Colin Gawel and Jeremy Porter right up to Bruce Springsteen – making ANY AMOUNT of money they can from rock & roll. Musicians work for YEARS to learn their craft; more power to the ones who can command $4000 a ticket. Just don’t expect me to be a party to it.
To a large extent I am still that 1960’s boy I was when I saw The Who on November 1st, 1969, and I have to ask the question, “How many millions are ENOUGH millions?”
By the way, I’m told The Rolling Stones dropped the song “Brown Sugar” from their sets on the latest tour due to the racist/misogynistic lyric overtones. If that’s accurate, they should have dropped “Street Fighting Man” also. Somehow, “What can a poor boy do / ‘Cept to sing for a rock & roll band” just doesn’t ring true from Mick & Keith in the 21st century. (And “What can a multi-millionaire do?” doesn’t fit the meter.)
But I guess that’s exactly the point; THIS IS the 21st century. We don’t buy our tickets at Sears anymore. And we don’t camp out overnight at Buzzard’s Nest Records to buy our tickets from Jim Johnson. Online consumers purchase their tickets at Ticketmaster for whatever the traffic will bear. And that’s fine; algorithms rule in 2023.
So here’s my algorithm; I’ve said proudly to whomever would listen for YEARS now that “I’ve seen every Bruce Springsteen tour since 1976.” That algorithm ends now.
And it’s not the money; I’ve GOT $4000, but I’m not about to pay it for a rock & roll show, even a Bruce Springsteen rock & roll show.
And truthfully, the last couple of tours – amidst the horn sections, and the back-up singers, and Soozie Tyrell on violin, and (God help us) a percussionist – I’ve found myself kinda aching deep down in my soul for those seven (almost) original E Street Band members (Bruce, Steve Van Zandt, Clarence Clemons, Roy Bittan, Danny Federici, Garry W. Tallent and Max Weinberg) POUNDING out the music in a lean, mean, superfine fever dream of rock & roll rama-lama.
But facts are facts: Clarence and Danny are gone.
And now, so am I.
That’s my algorithm. - Ricki C. / July 27th, 2022
So what will I be doing when the E Street Band plays Columbus, OH. on March 9th, 2023? Probably watching this…….
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND / PASSAIC THEATER, 9/19/1978 (music at the 1:22 mark)
My receipt from May, 1978 for the Vet’s Memorial show exactly two weeks before the YouTube video linked above.
p.s. All that being said, I bet “Ghosts” is gonna be GREAT live.