{"id":866,"date":"2018-02-27T02:28:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T02:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=866"},"modified":"2026-06-27T02:29:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T02:29:35","slug":"bruce-springsteen-and-the-e-street-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=866","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

September 1985, Orange Bowl, Miami, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have one Bruce Springsteen album and a bunch of his songs from various other albums in my music collection. He is, undoubtedly, one of the most important artists in the last 40 years, and his work has inspired millions of people. He\u2019s an American icon and continues to be a voice of this generation.<\/p>\n

And while I appreciate all he has done, he\u2019s never meant that much to me. I tried to listen to his albums from the 1970s and early 1980s, but I quickly become disinterested (Born to Run<\/em>) or bored (Darkness on the Edge of Town<\/em>) while Nebraska<\/em> (to paraphrase Frank Turner) is just a bunch of songs. I was too young to understand Springsteen at the time, and didn\u2019t grow up in the world he did \u2014 his music and lyrics didn\u2019t translate.<\/p>\n

But in the summer of 1984, Bruce broke through to me and 50 million others when he released the album megatron monster that is Born in the U.S.A<\/em>. It wasn\u2019t as dark as his previous albums (Nebraska<\/em> particularly), and produced seven top 10 singles, which tied the Thriller<\/em> album also charting at the same time. An interesting fact about 1984: It was the year with the fewest number (five) of albums reaching No. 1. The five? Thriller, Footloose, Born in the U.S.A., Purple Rain<\/em> and Sports<\/em>. You have to love Huey Lewis for breaking into a year of giant albums. I digress.<\/p>\n

I was in high school at the time, and I didn\u2019t know anyone who didn\u2019t have a copy of Born in the U.S.A. Springsteen was ubiquitous \u2014 his songs even became fodder during the 1984 presidential election (the largest rout in presidential election history) \u2014 and even though Michael Jackson\u2019s and Prince\u2019s music was massively popular, it didn\u2019t seem as important as Springsteen\u2019s. That album defines the time as much as anything that happened.<\/p>\n

So the chance to see him and the band during this tour was an obvious choice \u2014 and we didn\u2019t particularly care about getting good seats, just being there was enough. A bunch of my friends got tickets, and on a September night during my senior year in high school, we went to see The Boss.<\/p>\n

I do love just about every song on Born in the U.S.A.,<\/em> with \u201cHungry Heart\u201d and \u201cThunder Road\u201d as the other Springsteen songs I don\u2019t mind listening to at any time. I was aware that an artist of Springsteen\u2019s depth was going to play several songs I didn\u2019t care to hear. But what makes Springsteen such a great live performer is his ability to have the audience buy into the whole concert spectacle, whether it\u2019s a lively song or one of quite introspection.<\/p>\n

Growing up in Miami, I have seen and heard several seminal moments in Orange Bowl history. I\u2019ve never seen so much dejection than when San Diego kicked a field goal with 1:08 left in overtime to beat Miami in the 1981 playoffs. I\u2019ve never heard it quieter than when Doug Flutie threw that damn pass that beat my Hurricanes and win him the Heisman Trophy (you\u2019re welcome). And I\u2019ve never heard a louder crowd than when Bruce Springsteen walked on stage, fist pumped in the air, and with the music pulsing behind him sang \u201cBorn down in a dead man\u2019s town.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the right start of the night, which included two parts and an intermission, allowing the crowd of 75,000 or so to catch its breath. Bruce doesn\u2019t play two-hour shows; he plays four-hour events where each song becomes an opus unto itself. \u201cBorn in the U.S.A.\u201d gave way to \u201cBadlands,\u201d with \u201cJohnny 99,\u201d \u201cDarkness on the Edge of Town\u201d and \u201cThe River\u201d to follow. Sensing a lull in the crowd, the band picked it up with \u201cWorking on the Highway\u201d and \u201cDarlington County\u201d before kicking into \u201cGlory Days,\u201d a song that has an increased resonance with me as I get older. I\u2019m pretty sure \u201cThunder Road\u201d brought the first half of the show to an end, leaving the crowd ramped up for what could come next \u2014 you know you\u2019re an artist of considerable success when you can put a song like \u201cThunder Road\u201d in the middle of a set.<\/p>\n

The second half would be \u201cHungry Heart\u201d (so good live), as well as \u201cDancing in the Dark,\u201d \u201cCadillac Ranch,\u201d \u201cPink Cadillac\u201d and \u201cBobby Jean\u201d. He even threw in and Elvis cover (\u201cCan\u2019t Help Falling in Love\u201d) before moving into the iconic \u201cBorn to Run\u201d. At this point the band had been on tour for more than a year, but it was tight and energetic, and I can\u2019t remember seeing a band as together as a unit as this one. Max Weinberg, I will add, is the fucking man.<\/p>\n

It was getting past 11 p.m. and Bruce, still enthralled by the crowd that could not get enough, said \u201cHey guys, we\u2019re running out of songs here.\u201d With the white lights blaring from the stage, he ripped through \u201cStand on It\u201d before walking off spent with a satisfied crowd in his wake. To this day I have yet to see one artist play as long as Springsteen did, all for the price of $17.50.<\/p>\n

I never did see Bruce in concert again, but did I need to?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 1985, Orange Bowl, Miami, Fla. I have one Bruce Springsteen album and a bunch of his songs from various other albums in my music collection. He is, undoubtedly, one of the most important artists in the last 40 years, and his work has inspired millions of people. He\u2019s an American icon and continues to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[119,120],"class_list":["post-866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-bruce-springsteen-and-the-e-street-band","tag-orange-bowl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":868,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions\/868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}