Is There Anybody Alive Out There? Springsteen in Atlanta 2008
…and then it happens.
Six months of waiting — years of waiting, really — and the day finally arrives. The day arrives and then you arrive. Atlanta. I hate this fuckin’ place. You arrive and you get gouged for a Coke in the CNN Center. You watch some silly 20somethings take their picture in front of an Anderson Cooper mural. You arrive and you find your seat. You look at all the seats in front of you and curse the people who will soon sit there. You slip outside for one last smoke and agonize over which T-shirt to buy. You entertain buying two, settle on one. The waiting all comes down to this. You arrive and then the lights go down.
It’s always a spiritual moment at any concert when the lights go down. The crowd roars, your eyes adjust, you squint to see them make their way to the stage. You pretend you can actually tell who is who. It’s a spiritual moment as the potential energy in the room ignites and goes kinetic when any band takes the stage- but this is not any band. This is the E Street Band.
How do you describe that moment? You don’t. If you’ve been there before, you’ve felt it. If you haven’t, you wouldn’t understand it anyway. Ask me how I know.
Filed under: Bruce Springsteen, Magic Tour Chronicles
We were on the floor in Tampa, but in Orlando we were in the 2nd level (which were the best tickets I could get as soon as they went on sale). Right before the lights went out, I was looking around at a 3/4 full arena, perplexed that (1) more people didn’t attend and (2) I couldn’t get a closer seat, seeing that more people didn’t attend.
I wonder how many people were messed up by the re-schedule. The tickets may have been sold but people couldn’t make it at the later date. It’s strange. Atlanta was not a 100% sellout, I don’t believe, but it was packed pretty tight.