”Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night….” I don’t know if Bruce and the guys realised it, but they had a lot of expectations to live up to last night in Dublin. Me and Bruce go back a long way and it’s been five years since I’ve last seen him and the E. street band play. I failed to get tickets for Belfast last year, succeeded in going to Arnhem, but returned home gig-less, bitterly disappointed and angry at Bruce’s poor immune system. Then finally the Dublin gigs were announced and thanks to a coordinated approach by myself and my husband (he queuing for 2 hours in the early morning, me hovering anxiously over the laptop in work) and success!! We are finally getting to see the mighty Bruce and the E. Street Band in the flesh again! No pressure guys, no pressure. So 8 pm Thursday night I was in a great spot in the pit, worrying that a last minute hitch would stop them from coming on. It was getting late. The familiar nerves gnawed in my stomach. Would they be as good as I remembered? Had age caught up with them? Then ten past eight, Bruce skipped onto stage from behind Clarence’s coat tails grinning like a school boy playing hooky and blasted into ‘Promised Land’. The first few notes shook me with delight. The guitars were sharp, the stage lifted with energy, Bruce shook his booty in front of the crowd: ahhhh the guys are back in town and I was home again. As the gig went on my smile got broader and voice hoarser from shouting all the words – Reason to Believe, Darkness, She’s the One..it got better and better and still the encore to cap the night off. Waiting for the band to come back on I looked at Clarence sitting quietly in his armchair at the side also waiting, too stiff to take that long walk off the stage. Things change over time. My first ever gig was the Tunnel of Love tour in the same venue. Twenty years later and we were all older, stiffer, lives changed. Danny has passed on to a better place. The songs remain a constant though, the older ones taking on new nuances over time, the new ones evolving out of a different place. What changes will have happened the next time they return? I wondered, before being rocked out of my reverie by the beautiful, familiar, soaring notes of Thunderoad. Who knows and who cares? The only future I’m thinking about now is Sunday night when I get to do it all again….
