Seeing coverage of Bruce Springsteen's current tour stirred up my own favorite Boss memory. November 1978, 24 hours in line = 6th row center at McGaw Hall in Evanston (he was doing a tour mixing colleges with, for the first time, huge stadiums - if you know Springsteen history, this is still considered his greatest tour -- the "darkness" tour -- with his marathon sets, great E Street Band, and simply unbelievable energy and intensity), shared a ticket with friend Lela from out east (who'd treated me to Springsteen at New York's MSG that August, earlier in the tour), she chatted w/ "older" couple behind us during intermission, turned out to be Jon Landau (Sprinsteen's manager) and his wife, gave us their backstage passes during encore (impressed that Lela had come out from the east coast), we were the only ones back stage, Springsteen came out and hung out sitting on a backstage picnic table for 15 minutes or so. And he seemed pleased that I had caught his red knit sweat-soaked tie which he'd flung out into the audience from atop a speaker bank during an encore. Memorable night, to say the least. And Springsteen is the best live rock act I have ever seen, even beating out the Who. And thanks again, Lela Cocoros!
March 6, 2016