Springsteen and I – Part 2 – The concerts I

1999 would be a year of change for me, but little did I know sometime in March, when Jörg informed me about having secured three tickets for the Reunion tour of Springsteen & the E-Street-Band.
I would gladly take one ticket and travel from Trier¹ to the location with my motorbike².
But there was Carsten, another participant of same seminar and he would take the third ticket in an instant, making it possible to travel by (his) car to Cologne, which we did on the 15th of April, parked in the huge garage of the (then) Köln-Arena, met Jörg and went for a beer.
The merch stand outside the venue was benefitting from my high salary at the time as I bought the most expensive hoodie (and thinking back, it might have been my first one as well) for unspeakable 120,00 DM…³
Then we got into the Arena and looking for our seats we found ourselves at the top with only three rows being farther away from the stage :-D. Didn’t bother us one bit. Springsteen. Live with the E-Street-Band. Something that hadn’t happened in almost 15 years. And the concert had barely started, when they played Youngstown. My all-time-favourite. This song means sooooooo much to me. Nothing could go wrong now.
The acoustic version of Born in the USA was simply wonderful and the whole show just a blast.
Yes, there was Wolfgang Niedecken and there was Hungry Heart – both dispensable in these circumstances, though I will acknowledge that Niedecken is one of the better guys…

But then the second encore: Thunder Road. Tears well up in my eyes thinking about that moment, because the tears in the eyes of my dear friend Jörg were the culmination of a perfect experience with all the emotions enclosed in that very moment.
We drove back to the seminar location and Jörg made his way back to Wiesbaden. Driving through the night with these fresh memories, clad in a new hoodie (and a very special late evening at the hotel). This first experience of a Bruce Springsteen-Show will stay with me forever.

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Shortly after the Cologne experience, Jörg would be on the phone again: ‚How about Offenbach in June, will you be there, I got a ticket for you?‘
‚IS A BEAR CATHOLIC?’ DOES THE POPE SHIT IN THE WOODS?‘
Of course I would be there. And so I was, driving to Offenbach with the motorbike, meeting Jörg on the parking lot, throwing my gear in his car and change into jeans shirt to be able to run for the best places in the stadium, once they open the doors. There was no pit, no armbands at that time and we ended up pretty close (some 8 or 10m) to the stage. I even had time to secure a shirt for Ute – which became a special memory for all of us, as Katrin wore it in hospital several years later after your crash…

The setlist was close to Cologne and I enjoyed the dancing and the crowd this time in close proximity to the stage on the covered grounds of the stadium.

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After the reunion tour of 1999/2000 we were all shocked by 9/11 and Springsteen did cope with the event by recording The Rising and followed the release up with a world tour.
The ever reliable Jörg secured tickets for both Kathinka and me and together with his then-gf-to-become-wife we traveled to Ludwigshafen, where in the same stadium ten years ago I had secured the title of German champion in the class of the 30 year old high jumpers.
We settled some 20m from the stage, where I could see perfectly, Kathinka not so much.
But since it was before the accident, I had her on my shoulders during Born to Run, so she would rise above the whole crowd but we had a blast throughout the whole show.
May well have been the best concert of Springsteen I encountered. There was Racing in the street and what a special moment with my beloved wife this was. And while the encores were slightly generic, it was a fantastic concert, starting with Bruce entering the stage by himself and without wasting time for greetings played This hard land, best intro into a show that would instantly explode with the whole band involved in The Rising afterwards.

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There will be a part three. Later.

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