Dream Baby Dream

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I've been to a lot of Springsteen shows. 30 to be exact. All of them were highly anticipated. Not a single one of them fell below expectations. Wednesday night, about one song in it occurred to me that perhaps I was seeing a special one.

Bruce came on doing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. He did a pitcher's windup. The first pitch he threw was a beauty.

Thunder Road with just Roy playing the piano behind him.

Instantly I thought of my siblings. I thought of singing it without any music playing at all as Jeff worked with me to figure out the words. We'd been on a porch in Fort Meyers, Florida. 25 years ago.

So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore.

I waited for the next line.

Show a little faith there's magic in the night.

And there was so much magic. And just as he's been all of my adult life Bruce was in the center of the magic. He sang. He mugged. He ate a hot dog. He mugged some more. He guzzled a beer.

And he kept reaching back into the past.

Usually I just sit back and wait and the moment of the concert comes to me. What struck me right between the eyes on Wednesday was one simple line in Backstreets.

Trying in vain to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be.

We didn't have to be heroes. We didn't have to be the best. We just had to live. We just had to laugh. We just had to dream, baby dream.

I just wanna' see you smile.

Bruce sang that line ten times in a voice reserved for someone who wants to hang themselves.

He knows what he's doing.

The pain builds up. He just wanted a smile.

And man I smiled a lot. Right on through to the end...to the end...

Hiding on the Backstreets, hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets....19 times he says it. 19 times every time.

"We got time for one more," Bruce said in the moment after I turned to my beautiful wife and said:

"That might be the best show we've ever seen."

And he did it for me again.

He played American Land.

My brother's favorite song.

"I want to see him again tomorrow," Kathy said as we tried to file out of Fenway Park.

Yeah, me too.

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