DanMargarita.com

Less then a week after my father’s passing, the Boss came to town to play at Gillette Stadium. I really needed some life-affirming intervention at that point. “Love” wasn’t an option that day and mint chocolate chip ice cream is bad for my cholesterol. As fate would have it, on the day of the show a friend hooked me up with someone looking to unload two tickets for the concert. I had to think that a higher power was at work, whether it was God or my Dad, looking down on me to give me this much needed break. I just have to wonder why He or he had to accompany it with such crappy weather.

I took my sister Mimi to the show and the traffic wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but that might have been because it looked like most of the concert-goers had been there for three hours, drinking beer and grilling burgers.

As we found our seats, we discovered that we were on the complete opposite end of the stadium and those beings that we could make out setting up the stage were barely visible. Luckily for us, we were underneath the upper deck so that if it did rain, we were not going to get wet. The show was scheduled for 7:30 and I was informed that Springsteen normally took an hour after that to start his shows. With skies darkening however, it was clear that they were going to delay the start of the show well beyond that time.

Then thunder erupted, lightening bolts cracked the sky and torrential rains descended upon the stadium. My sister screamed and said “What did you take me to!?” Suddenly, it appeared that having lousy seats was a blessing. The patrons on the field in the “good” seats scrambled for cover. Perhaps they were trying to avoid getting drenched, although that was no longer an issue by that point. More likely, they didn’t want to be standing on the temporary aluminum floor put over the field surface while lightening bolts that would’ve please Dr. Frankenstein appeared repeatedly in spectacular fashion.

At 9:20 p.m., Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band took the stage. Starting with a cover of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” the Boss ran through songs old and new as well as a few other cover songs.

Springsteen frequently went to the front of the stage to sing to/with the crowd, but being so far away, I could only watch the show on the large TV screens on each side of the stage. It was on several shots of the crowd taken from the stage that I could clearly see that a former girlfriend of mine was in the front row. Sure, she got a close glimpse of the Rock icon and maybe got to shake hands with him…but she probably also got soaked.

Springsteen may be 58-years-old, but he is in great shape and puts out more energy that most artists half his age could probably manage during a show. At one point he sprinted across the stage and hit his knees, sliding about 10-12 feet. If Manny Ramirez had put in that kind of effort, he’d probably still be wearing a Red Sox uniform.

Bruce apologized for the late start but made up for it, extending the show past curfew. That was made clear by the folks at Gillette Stadium turning on the lights in a “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here” manner. Springsteen ignored the not-so-subtle hint and played on. At one point he told the crowd “This one’s for ‘The Coach.’ I know he’s out there somewhere.”

While he was certainly referring to New England Patriot’s Coach Bill Belichick, my sister and I wanted to believe that he was talking about Dad.

Since our seats were near the exit and close to Route 1, we were able to get out of there quickly and be home in just over an hour, while those in the “good” seats likely sat in traffic for hours.

That turned out to be just another benefit of having lousy seats.