Concert Tales: Springsteen on the Parkway, 10/04//08

So I ultimately managed to get hold of a ticket to the free Springsteen show/Obama rally that took place this past weekend. This story isn't just about the concert, it's about events prior to and after, so here's the story of how I spent my Saturday.

For a number of reasons, I didn't get a huge amount of sleep Friday night/Saturday morning. I woke up around 11:30 groggy and still unsure of who's coming to the show with me and if I'm even gonna go (I'm pretty sure I'm gonna drag my ass out of bed for it regardless of whether my compatriates are in). I text Justin, my immediate comrade in planning for the days events to see if this is still game. I unfortunately did not keep the text message he replied, but the first two words read "Hell Yes!" Justin comes to the door and we start to head to the car I realize I don't have my ticket printed. I bolt back to my room to print said ticket, which takes about a million years since I had to boot up my computer. Since SEPTA (Philly transit system) only runs hourly on the weekends and by the time we get to the car its 1:05, we're pretty sure we missed a train. And the gates opened at 2:00, so we're worried about getting halfway decent seating.

Enter: The Music Gods, who woke up on the right side of the bed this morning and chose to smile upon this day. We got to the train station and there were still dozens of people there, for there was also a train arriving at 1:15. For added fun, a guy who was pretty clearly an Obama supporter carrying a stack of the preferred seats for the concert (previously only available to volunteers) walked up to us and offered myself, Justin, Peter, and Megan (my comrades for the day) said preferred tickets, the sole catch being that we promise to vote for Obama. Done and done.

We get on the train, clutching our preferred tickets for dear life. It's right around here that Justin exclaims "Guys, we're going to see Bruce Springsteen!!" for the first of about 176 times that day. A million people get off at Suburban Station, the stop nearest the Ben Franklin Parkway, thus making clear just how big this event is. No matter: we've got preferred seats now. The four of us walk a few blocks to our designated entrance, and after some confusion about where we're supposed to be, we get into the staging area. For a Springsteen concert, the area near the stage was rather sparse. We weren't complaining. We start out about a half dozen rows from the barricade, and then Peter spots a hole much closer, and we set up final camp one row from the barricade. We estimated that we were about 15 feet from the goings-on on stage. The opening acts were OK, but nothing spectacular. Most of the first three rows stopped listening and started screaming as a black SUV pulls up to The Boss's tour bus and the man himself gets out of the SUV and onto the bus.

One last note about the warmup acts: one of the artist's was a local guy by the name of Amos Lee. I don't have any of his stuff yet, but check him out on iTunes here. Dude is worth checking out, and you know how I am about recommending local artists, especially solo singer-songwriters.

Finally, the main event comes to the stage. He legit sounds exactly how he sounds every time I've heard him before...on CD, on TV...he's just that fantastic. He played a pretty short, standard set of his more uplifting tracks, including the one song Justin and I think would make a hell of a campaign song for Obama.

Bruce Springsteen - The Rising [iTunes]
(iTunes is on the fritz, will post legit link tomorrow)

Setlist and video is below

Bruce Springsteen on the Ben Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 10/04/08

The Promised Land
The Ghost of Tom Joad
Thunder Road
No Surrender
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
The Rising
"Yes We Can" Improv/This Land Is Your Land/"Yes We Can"





The day ended with returning to Megan's apartment and watching Empire Records (which I hadn't seen before then) and pillaging each other's music collections. Great success.

==TJ==