Bruce Springsteen Concert 9-9-85

What Is This?
I was asked by many about my musical influences when making stamps and asked to share some of the stories behind the concerts I have seen. I have been to 1200+ live concerts (all national touring bands/singers with albums, not local club bands or tribute/cover bands, have seen plenty of those too) and have saved every ticket stub and backstage pass (when I had one) and kept notes (like a journal) on every show I have ever seen. So from time to time I will scan in the ticket stub from a show I saw (going in no order, skipping around) and talk a little about the show and my opinion. All information property of dA--stamps/dA--bogeyman (me). This is entry#36.

The Concert:
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
(No Opening Act)
September 9, 1985
Orange Bowl Stadium, Miami, Florida (USA)

Just So You Know:
This was Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's legendary "Born In The USA 1984-85 World Tour". It was their longest and most successful tour ever and it is particularly notable that the 'Born In The USA' album stayed inside the Top 10 of the Billboard charts during the entire tour. Besides Bruce Springsteen (lead vocals, guitars, harmonica) the E Street Band on this tour was Clarence Clemons (saxophone, congas, percussion, background vocals), Nils Lofgren (guitars, background vocals), Roy Bittan (piano, synthesizer, background vocals), Danny Federici (organ, glockenspiel, piano, synthesizer), Patti Scialfa (background vocals, synthesizer, tambourine), Garry Tallent (bass guitar) and Max Weinberg (drums). Sadly the "Big Man" Clarence Clemons died on June 18, 2011 and Danny Federici died on April 17, 2008 making this legendary Born In The USA tour line-up defunct forever. Parts of the 'Live/1975–85' album were recorded on this tour.

Personal:
Bruce Springsteen had become a musical and cultural phenomenon at this time - MTV had all of his videos on heavy rotation and his 'Born In The USA' album had released seven hit singles. My buddy Manny and I got tickets the day they went on sale (show sold out quickly), there was no way we were going to miss this concert. We drove down to Miami and our car (Volkswagen Rabbit) radiator blew up a few hours before the show. We found a gas station-garage that could fix it fairly quickly (about an hour) and I had my father's visa credit card and paid for the repair with that (caught hell for that later for not telling him). We still got to the show early to eat a couple of hot dogs and buy our concert t-shirts. Our parents would only allow us to miss one day of school (Monday, day of concert) so we had to drive back through the night (about 4 to 4 1/2 hours back to Tampa) to be in school on Tuesday morning. Of course we wore our concert t-shirts to school the next day and all our friends (and teachers LOL) were jealous we had seen "The Boss" the night before in Miami.

The Live Concert (Opener):
There was no opening band for this show.

The Live Concert (Headliner):
The concert had an early start time (7pm) for a reason - Bruce and his band play for around three and a half hours with a 15-20 minute break in between two sets so the show got over around 11pm-ish. And boy what a concert it was - a huge American flag hung behind the stage and two massive video screens were set up on both sides of the stage as they opened with "Born In The USA" and everyone was standing, singing, dancing, chanting the main chorus as loud as they could. After the opening song the American flag was dropped down revealing a huge third video screen behind the band/stage. The video screens were live camera feeds of Bruce and the band members on stage as they performed. Bruce talked in between songs and mesmerized the audience with his short tales of growing up in New Jersey and life on the road as a rock star (he also told some jokes). Dominating center stage with Bruce was saxophonist Clarence Clemons and guitarist Nils Lofgren. Clarence was always involved with Bruce's stories and jokes and of course jammed on the sax like a possessed madman (wonderful). Nils had all the guitar licks down perfect and dressed exactly like Bruce did (even wearing a similar headband) - I think Nils thought he was "Baby Bruce" LOL. All of the E Street Band were musically right on it and it made for an amazingly unforgettable concert. They played a ton of songs that night so I will list some of my favorites from the show - "Atlantic City", "Working On The Highway", "I'm Goin' Down", "Hungry Heart", "Cover Me", "Born To Run", "Dancing In The Dark", "Pink Cadillac", "I'm On Fire", "Twist And Shout", "Downbound Train", "Do You Love Me?", "Bobby Jean" and "Glory Days". I knew every song sung that night (so did the crowd) and it was just such a special concert, I was really into the 'Born In The USA' album and knew every song on it back and forth and enjoyed hearing all of those tunes played live. At most concerts you see people leaving early (usually during the encores to beat the traffic) but no one left early during this marathon concert. Seeing Bruce anytime is a special event (I have seen him a few more times on later tours) but this time period was just so magical. Thank you Bruce, Clarence and the rest of the E Street Band for a wonderful musical event.

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