So I spent Tuesday night at the latest Bruce Springsteen Concert in Cleveland at the Q Arena. This concert was a late birthday gift I bought myself….I bought last July;)…..so I’ve been waiting for this concert for some time. I get to Cleveland the morning of the concert and get my wrist band for the chance to get into the pit. I had general admission tickets but venues provide an opportunity to get into the pit/closest to the stage without having to camp out…which I would have totally done. How it works is at a preset time anybody with general admission tickets show up and get an orange band with a number on it. They give these bands out for several hours…then 2 hours before the show they line everyone up numerically and a number is called. This number is the beginning of the pit tickets. These people get to go to the front of the stage (there is a certain amount of pit individuals) and the rest of the general admission ticket individuals enter behind these people and are cut off by a barricade. When they pick the number the way it works is the predetermined amount of pit people will follow numerically behind the number called. For example if there are 800 people with bands and they are letting 400 into the pit and the pull the number 500 the people who are in the pit are bands number 500 to 800 then the first 100 at the beginning of the line. Well, I get my band I’m number 101….this means I either want one of three things to happen….either a super low number be called…or a super high number to be called…or my number to be called (I hate to say it but I’m not that lucky) BUT……..I was lucky enough for a super high number to be called…mean I ENDED UP IN THE PIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes they pulled a number and it cut off at band 175…I had done it I was going to be close enough to Bruce and the E-Street Band that I could spit on them!!!!!!!! I was floored! Both my Sister and I have tried on several occasions to get into the pit to no avail (but don’t get me wrong general admission tickets are great!)
So at this point I’ve been in line for two hours they let us in and I am left of center stage positioned not against the stage barriers but just a bit back in front of where Clarence “Big Man” will be. Needless to say I’ve got a GREAT place. So then I wait standing for another two hours. By the end of the concert I will have stood for seven and a half hours (but it was totally worth every moment of it).
At this point all I’m not sure if this could get any better! I’m at a Bruce concert; I’ve finally made it into the pit. The only thing that would have made it really great is if my Mother and/or Sister could have been there. I was a lone concert goer this time. The concert begins…It is everything I could want. Bruce and the Band are great (considering they did a huge…huge…show at Madison Square Garden’s a couple nights before) then third song it happens…..Hungry Heart begins (one of my favorite songs)….the crowd sings the first verse of the song (this traditionally happens anytime the song is sang at a Bruce concert) and I’m in heaven. Bruce is crowd surfed from one end of the pit to the next and flipped backwards on stage (I tried to touch him but I was ill positioned). Then begins the “Born to Run” album (as I have mentioned he played the entire 1975 album Thunder Road begins I hear the similar electricity from the crowd that I heard at the Pittsburgh concert in May. The songs are amazing…then Jungleland starts….the lights dim and a disco ball cast orbs of light that slowly drift around the arena…it…is…epic! I never in a million years would have guessed I would hear Jungleland in concert….it just keeps getting better. Over the next hour I hear Pink Cadillac, Waitin On a Sunny Day, Red Headed Woman, and then Back in Your Arms. It is amazing and slow! From what I’ve read it was a concert highlight! Then to end the set…I hear it Badlands (another one of my favorite songs). This concert was practically a home run on songs I wanted to hear…there was one left….I coveted it I wanted to hear the ever elusive Rosalita! The band takes a bow but doesn’t leave the stage….they start right into their encore! He dedicated the first song to The Cleveland Food Bank then the next to “Cleveland Boys.” Then Dancing in the Dark comes on…..it spectacular and I pray that he will drag me on stage to be the next Courtney Cox lol, but still no Rosalita. Then he played Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” which I conclude will be a good trade of for Rosalita…then Higher and Higher is played it was an awesome song to end on! Then just when I think the concert is over…I hear it….the opening cords of ROSALITA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!! I have died and gone to heave…the song is wild, and loud, and fast. I’m singing at the top of my lungs…oh how I want to go to “that little place in southern California….down San Diego way!”
The concert was epic and perfection reigned. Not only was I at a Bruce concert, I managed to get into the pit and hear three songs that I have coveted to hear in a concert together (not to mention the rest of the spectacular set list)!
Now I can only imagine what the Buffalo show will be like. Yes you heard it here first I have a ticket for the Buffalo show and not only is it Steven Van Zandt’s birthday but it is also the last date of the tour. I believe the show will be spectacular and larger than life!!!!!!!!! But my Cleveland show has been by far one of the best concerts I’ve ever…EVER…attended 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
November 10th 2009, Cleveland OH, Quicken Loans Arena Set List:
Wrecking Ball (with Curt Ramm)
Prove It All Night
Hungry Heart
Working on a Dream
(Beginning of “Born to Run”)
Thunder Road
Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (with Curt Ramm)
Night
Backstreets
Born to Run
She’s the One
Meeting Across the River (with Curt Ramm)
Jungleland
(End of “Born to Run”)
Waitin’ on a Sunny Day
Raise Your Hand
Red Headed Woman
Pink Cadillac
Back in Your Arms
Radio Nowhere
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Badlands
*****Encore
No Surrender
Bobby Jean
American Land (with Curt Ramm)
Dancing in the Dark
Can’t Help Falling in Love
Higher and Higher (with Curt Ramm)
Rosalita (with Curt Ramm)

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