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Story by
William Buchheit
May 2nd, 11:20 am: John picks me up in his truck on a warm, drizzly Saturday morning in May. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since a Springsteen show last April. We both made it to the Atlanta show April 22, but I was with my mom and sister and he’d taken his wife and daughter. It was a hell of a show, and he’d seen it from the pit just mere feet from the stage.
“Once you see a show from the pit, you won’t ever wanna be anywhere else,” he had told me the following morning.
He would know, having been to 35 Springsteen shows since 1981. Though an obvious diehard, he’d never seen a show from the pit until the Boss played North Charleston last summer. He was instantly hooked, and it didn’t take much to talk me into trying to get into the pit at the Greensboro show.
Behind the Stones and Beatles, Springsteen is my third favorite artist. When I saw my first show in Charlotte in November of ‘92, I was a wide-eyed 16-year-old who had just two of his albums and only knew a handful of his songs. That 3.5-hour concert opened the door for me, and his acoustic performance of “Thunder Road” that night still rates as the best I’ve ever seen or heard live.
Today, I can recite his lyrics like Drama teachers do Shakespeare, and his albums have compiled the soundtrack to my life. So when John mentioned the idea of trying to get into the pit for the show, of course I was up for it.
The system works like this: a fan buys a GENERAL ADMISSIONS ticket, reports to the entrance between 2-5 pm and receives a numbered wristband. They are asked to return at 5:30 for a lottery drawing to determine who gets into the pit and who doesn’t. For instance, if 700 pit passes can be given out, and the number 107 is drawn, numbers 107-807 get in.
3:00 pm: we are in the enormous Coliseum parking lot, waiting on John’s friend Scott and his sister to meet us. A few minutes later, Scott bursts through the parking lot in a shiny black Mercedes convertible. He’s wearing a t-shirt with a photo of Springsteen and late-keyboardist Danny Federici back when they were teenagers. He introduces us to his sister, who has flown in from Pennsylvania just to see the show with him. She is in her 40s, with auburn hair, an athletic build and shirt advertising the Stone Pony, the Jersey club Springsteen made famous back in the ‘70s. Both of them have already gotten their wristbands.
She’s all smiles as she tells us about her flight.
“There were only a few people on the plane,” she says, but every one of them was coming to the show.”
“Why didn’t you go to either of the Philly shows this week,” I ask.
“My friends up there just don’t get Springsteen,” she says, her big smile fading. “You know, I guess you either love him or hate him.”
It is true. Like followers of Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead and Kiss, Springsteen fans are like a cult. You will meet few who have seen him only once, but you will meet quite a number who have seen him many times.
3:17: John’s brother finally spins in from Florence and we head to the General Admission gate to get our wristbands. We are numbers 498, 499 and 500. “Be back here by 4:45,” the woman tells us.
4:00: We are sitting at Stamey’s, a sensational barbeque joint near the coliseum, and ordering like we are about to go into hibernation. John brings out his Blackberry and begins showing Scott and his brother the video he recorded at the Atlanta show last weekend. It is footage of Clarence Clemons’ sax solo during “Jungleland,” and it is so loud that a woman a few tables away (wearing a wristband herself) starts tapping her feet to it.
4:08: After the show and tell, Scott jokes about how you can hear John’s sobs over the music. I laugh, but both men openly admit to becoming misty-eyed when the band started playing “Jungle Land” the other night.
“So that’s your favorite Bruce song?” John’s brother asks.
“Oh yeah, not even close,” Scott says.
“How about ‘Racing in the Street?’ I ask.
“That’s up there. Probably top three,” he says.
I look away and take a drink of Sprite, thinking if I ever saw Springsteen do “Racing in the Street” or “The River,” there’s a good chance I might cry too.
4:45: We are back in at the coliseum, our bellies full of butterflies and barbeque, dismayed to find a mob scene of people wearing wrist bands and waiting. The wind is picking up and it looks as if it may storm any moment.
5:10: Some tour coordinator with a megaphone comes out and begins speaking into the noisy, buzzing crowd.
“Nearly 1,300 people got wristbands today,” he says. “By far the highest total of the tour so far. We’re going to take 450 in the pit, and we’ll be drawing here in a minute.”
The Springsteen mob emits a collective groan, realizing the odds of getting in the pit are now substantially against them.
5:15: The crew picks a random fan to draw the number. The crowd gets so silent that I can hear my own breath. I look around at all the crossed fingers and jittery knees. Suddenly I feel like I’ve bet all my money on black and the roulette wheel is still spinning. “Look how quiet it got,” I whisper to John, but he ignores me.
“The number is 932,” the guy says through the megaphone.
“Didn’t get it,” John mutters, saving me from doing the math in my already tired head. The people with the winning wristbands jump up and down like a team on “Survivor” that’s just won a challenge. We are told to get in line according to the lottery draw, which goes from 932-1250 and then starts over at 1. I am therefore around 816th in line.
For the moment, morale is low. Prior to this failure, John and Scott were a combined 7 for 7 in making it into the pit successfully. Most of the older people take a seat on the asphalt, and throughout the next hour, the fatigue and heat further deflate the crowd.
5:45: A woman in line with us asks John how many Springsteen shows she’s been to. About two minutes later, her husband, a man in his early ‘50s, reluctantly confesses that this is his 111th show since 1974. Even the die-hards around him giggle and shake their heads when he says he saw 30 shows on the “River” tour alone. “But the ‘78 Tour was by far the best,” he insists, with an conviction in his eyes nobody’s going to question.
6:15: We’ve been standing in line outside for a full hour-and-a-half and it feels like it. It’s now been three hours since we first pulled into the coliseum, and my legs and back are starting to sing. At long last, they open the coliseum doors and the line finally begins to move.
6:30: We rush into the arena to secure a place on the floor behind the pit. I’m surprised we can get so close to the stage, but we outhustled a lot of other fans who went to the bathroom or to get drinks. It is cool inside, and the Springsteen shirt sticking to my back finally begins to dry.
“I could probably hit the drumkit with a football,” I tell John enthusiastically.
“Yeah if you’re Dan Marino,” he says. We finally take a seat on the cold cement floor and continue talking with the woman and her husband - the one who’s just been admitted to his 111th show.
7:00: Everyone wearing a wristband has found their piece of concrete and is now sitting on it. Spirits lift as the crowd cools off, drinks beer and watches the rest of the coliseum fill up. A woman sitting on the floor in front of me asks if anyone has some Advil. I give her the two in my pocket.
8:00: Almost showtime. the floor crowd rises to its feet and prepares to stand for three-and-a-half more hours. With almost every topic exhausted, the Greensboro couple begins showing us photos of their two kids on a Blackberry. John shows a photo of his 19-year-old daughter and his brother brings out a photo of his 10-year-old son. I pass around a photo of my daughter’s dog, but no one seems quite as impressed with her as I am.
8:19: I yawn and rub my burning, bloodshot eyes, wondering how I’ll manage to stand for another three hours.
8:20: The lights go out and the crowd erupts, sending cries of “B-r-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-c-e” throughout the complex. Dressed in black jeans and a black tee-shirt, Springsteen counts out “1-2-3-4,” and the E-Street band thunders into “Badlands,” the concert favorite from 1978’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town” album. Max Weinberg’s 18-year-old son Jay is on drums. The floor instantly surges to life. The guy in front of me hops up and down as if on a pogo stick.
8:40: In the first real departure from the Atlanta show of the previous week, Bruce and guitarist Steven Van Zandt crank out a rocking version of 1984’s “No Surrender.”
9:25: In a tribute to the artists who inspired him, the Boss and his band rip through Willie Dixon’s “Seventh Son” and the McCoy’s “Hang On Sloopy.” The latter song nearly pulls the place apart with energy and excitement, as the crowd doesn’t just sing along, but screams along to every word. It is the performance of the night so far, and features Max Weinberg, who has just replaced his son at the drumkit.
9:40: The band tones down the energy, but not the excitement, playing two concert rarities, “Growin’ Up,” from their 1973 debut album, and the yearning “I’m on Fire,” from the “Born in the USA” record. As the Boss sings the second from a chair at the front of the stage, sweat drips from his elbow and wrist like water from a leaky shower head.
9:55: In a pairing that illustrates why his performances are so great, Springsteen follows “The Promised Land” with “Human Touch.” The first, another classic from the “Darkness” album, he has performed more than any other song (although “Born to Run” is a close second). The second, he and the band have not played since 2001. Yet they pull it off with effortless grace and conviction.
After “Born to Run,” the band rips through a rollicking “Cadillac Ranch” to complete the set.
10:30: The band returns for the encore with the younger Weinberg back on drums. Unlike the Atlanta show, Bruce plays “Thunder Road,” and fists fly up everywhere in appreciation.
11:00: After their customary performance of Pete Seeger’s “American Land,” the group expresses their own appreciation of the raucous crowd with the night’s final treat - “Glory Days.” It is the third song of the evening from “Born In the USA.” As the band jams out the end of the song, Bruce and Steven pull a large banner across the stage. “Steensboro” it reads. Smiles of satisfaction light up the arena.
11:08: The band takes a final bow and the lights come on. Fans shuffle off the coliseum floor and out into the steamy night like disciples emerging from the tent of a revival.
12:15: I fall onto my hotel bed, my ears ringing and brain humming from another fabulous show.
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