Springsteen fan, this is for you (long)

[Telecaster65]

Posted by a Liverpool guy after the June 28th 2003 gig at San Siro, Milan on SPL-Messages Bruce Springsteen Discussion Board.

That night I was there with the girl that lately has become my wife and the mother of my beloved son Francesco and I swear there's no exaggeration at all on the story, grafic and true.

This is a small present for all those guys (lime me) that like and appreciate Bruce's music and is solely intended to share one of the most beautiful, inspired and unforgettable experience of my life.

Hope you'll enjoy it!

(posted in two parts)

Where the hell do ya start?.....How do you put into words so that anyone might get even a small idea of what last night in Milan was like?.....I'll have a little go......

During the day we got lucky enough to see Da Vincis 'The Last Supper' which is truly amazing. It's surrounded by all sorts of machines gauging all sorts of things and they kinda lock you in a pre-room for five minutes first before letting you into were the painting takes up the entire wall,very special feeling to be there it is to.
We see Jon Landau signing autographs for the locals who should all have been shot for haircut crimes......
Then it's off to Bar Magenta to meet up with Big Steven and Tongee and Bryan.We drink four pints in five minutes (very expensive the ale is to in Italy,and there's no bloody cabs to ferry you round when your half pissed,no wonder they don't drink much on the continent )
Then it's off on the Metro to the San Siro.Now this place is like censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding Mecca for football fans,I was almost as excited about just going into the stadium as I was about seeing Bruce (Coz I'd already done that twice recently).AC MIlan (the Socialist team) have just won the European cup as well beating Inter Milan (The bourgois team) HOORAH! so in footballing terms were at the very centre of achievment right now.
We're standing outside having another bevvy about 90 minutes before showtime waiting for our contact who'se got us on the guest list to show up and we can hear the crowd inside the stadium going censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding mad already!!......bizarre!......he eventually shows up and guides us through various gates and before you know it we're inside the stadium walking out onto the pitch.........OH MY GOD........OH MY GOD.........just look at this place,it's absolutly censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding massive,I remember Italia 90 when we should have won the World cup all come flooding back to me,I look around and I can't believe this place,I'm lost in total awe.
There are people as far away and as high as you can see and there are banners everywhere,massive,massive banners,all over every level.......'This land is your land' 'Grazi Adele' God bless you Adele' Our love will not let you down' banners simply proclaiming undying love.
The atmosphere inside the place is beyond anything I've ever witnessed at any show by anyone ever.They don't just idolise him,they censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding love him.I'm overcome and he hasn't even started yet.There are waves of joy bouncing around the terraces,it's unreal,the religious overtones are totally undeniable now.More about that later.
In what seems like no time at all the Mexican waves stop and a strange roar starts up at the back of the stadium,it's kinda cascades down onto us on the pitch and the band start to come on......well,within the first bar of 'Promised land' I've burst into tears.The entire crowd is on it's feet and singing the harmonica riff and they don't sit down at all at any point.
Because of the stadiums design and the Italians unbelievable enthusiasm the entire night is accompanied by singing like a mass choir in your ear,kinda ghostly and like monks in the distance, it's the most beautiful and strangely moving sound I've ever heard in my life.I wish I could describe it better.
Lonesome day was magnificent.I'm now spending half my time just looking around at the people in the stadium just going censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding mad.......absolutly censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding insane.When he does 'Darkness' Genevieve says to me
'Oh my god look at that'

[Telecaster65]

I turn around to the seats at the back way, way, way up high and everyone is holding these little light things that they'd all brought along.Thousands of them twinkling in the night,filling the entire stadium.That sets me off again.It's so,so beautiful.
He slightly rushes 'Empty sky' but does 'The River' instead of 'You're missing' which is brilliant for me coz I really don't like that song,the violin riff does me head in.
Then it happens......the one thing that really made it.It pisses down.Not just a little bit,and you wouldn't even descibe it as heavy coz that wouldn't do it justice.It was beyond all that.
It was a Monsoon times ten!!
Within seconds I can feel the rain pouring down my legs inside my jeans,it's just like taking a shower it's that incessant.And it's absolutly brilliant.Everyone surrenders themselves to it even though we can't even see the stage anymore.An Electrical storm kicks off directly overhead and things just become so.........ELEMENTAL......it's Calvary now.It's gone all biblical.The San Siro,Bruce,The Storm,The Songs,The thousands of devoted followers......
I wish I could have been up in the stands at this point and looked down at everyone going crazy in the downpour,I'll bet that was a real sight.
We're completly soaked to the bone,everything we have is disintegrating,money, passports the lot.But we don't care!
'Growin up' is brilliant,he does a story in Italian which clearly we don't understand but the locals are going even madder than before.During 'Worlds apart' I look all around the stadium and every censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreder is up singing every word!.....to that song!....
At some point here the rain stops as quickly as it started eliciting another massive cheer.During 'Badlands' Genevieve turns to me and says 'The best ever' and I knew she didn't mean the best ever Springsteen show,she meant the best show ever.
We were lucky enough to see our most famous son here on Merseyside play the most wonderfully emotional show I'd ever witnessed a few weeks ago.That night the sheer historical and cultural meaning of seeing Paul McCartney here in his home broke my censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding heart.His songs hit home like you wouldn't believe..........but when my girlfriend turned and said that she echoed what I was thinking would be impossible.This show was actually better.
The rest of the main set just couldn't fail,'Thunder road' 'No surrender'........more tears of joy.

During 'Bobby Jean' the entire crowd did that 'waving there hands in the air from side to side 'thing.During Ramrod the kids put an AC Milan hat and scarf on Roy as he played to limited booing from the Inter supporters (the two teams share the stadium by the way) then the floodlights all came on for 'Born to run' and the mood shifted from joy to hysteria.
Then came the true highlight of the night.
'My city of ruins' is a hymn,and in that place last night I swear our hearts were filled with a desire not to give in to what has happened in the world lately,not to give in to blind hatred whoever they may be from,not to roll over and die coz a bunch of misfit ,Arabic rich kids decide to take there own personal hang ups out on the world in the wrong manner entirly,not to give in to jingistic claptrap and to realize that despite the cynicism we are all actually exactly the fooking same.
When the first 'Rise up' came through Bruce Springsteen censoredcensoredcensoredcensored himself.
You could see it on the screen,he ended up with a great big smile across his boat race but it started with an expression that basically said 'What the censoredcensoredcensoredcensored is that'!!!!!!
The crowd had been respectfully quite during the verse but when he came to sing those lines.....well.........I've never heard anything like it in my life,ever.
It overwhelmed completly.
I've seen a million rock and roll shows in my life and this performance of this song was the best I've seen.It personified what people like Bruce and Joe Strummer and Paul Weller and Billy Bragg have said all along.Music DOES make a difference,it CAN chnage things,it DOES mean that much.It wasn't just singing along.......I swear it wasn't.
It was saying 'We know what happened to you,we can never really feel your pain,but on the fatefull morning at 8:45am in New York City is something we won't forget either'.
LOHAD I can take or leave and besides I'm spent.Done for.Bolloxed.
I rally for 'Dancing in the dark' if only coz these mad Italian censoredcensoredcensoredcensoredcensoredcensoredce nsoreds are going mental one more time and I get swept along.I'm gone now,I've wept like a baby for much of the show,'My city of ruins' has completly seen me off and to be honest I've lost focus of what's happening on the stage at the end of DITD........I know he'll do another coz it's the last night but I'm expecting a 'Glory days' or 'Twist and shout' so I'm not actually concentrating when the opening notes of the next song start.I'm wet to the bone,tired,emotional,a bit pissed,happy as censoredcensoredcensoredcensored so I miss it.......I miss the big censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding moment in a show of monumental moments.
During the day when we met Big Steven in the bar we all said which song we'd like to hear the most................upon hearing the first three or four noted in the guitar riff Genevieve turned around to me and screamed in my face(kinda bringing me round if you like)........ROSIE!!! HE's PLAYING censoredcensoredcensoredcensoredING ROSIE!!!!!!!!....my little Northern heart nearly burst........I've no idea at all what happened next,I just went censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding crackers.I've been waiting for this song my whole life,ever since they used to play the footage from Phoenix when I was a kid every year on the Old Grey whistle test at New Year.This was the song that turned me onto Bruce as just a great Rock and roller.............If he'd have tried to play another tune after this I'd of turned my back on him......I had nothing left.
So off he goes and they put on that great version of 'Counting on a miracle' on the video.
Some fellas have gotten a ball out and are kicking it round as the stadium empties out......censoredcensoredcensoredcensored this....I've GOT TO kick a ball in the middle of the San Siro so I get one of them to pass to me and in the glorious floodlights of that magical place I keep the ball up for 30 seconds and fullfill another dream as well!!!
I kneel down and gather some grass from the pitch for a mate of mine and just sit there looking at the place,in awe.

I went to Wembley Arena last year and that was great fun,I went to Crystal Palace second night and he was great but the crowd were censoredcensoredcensoredcensorede (bloody souhterners) and I went to Manchestetr Old Trafford recently with my man Redwire and he was fantastic.........but this........this was unreal.It was all about the crowd.The Italians man........I'm censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding speechless.........I've seen the videos I've seen the DVD's and nowhere in the world is it like this,not even in New Jersey,not in the same censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding league mate.........miles behind,everywhere else is just playing at it.
Seriously.

We go to the Transylvania club to see Joe D'Urso and hopefully meet up with some Lakers but he reminds me of why I actually don't like any other music that sounds like Bruce (pub rock!) and the sight of 400 Italian goth kids is very unsettling so we leave pronto.

I'm a little sad now,were do we go from here?

[ravindave_3600]

Originally Posted by Telecaster65

.........I've seen the videos I've seen the DVD's and nowhere in the world is it like this,not even in New Jersey,not in the same censoredcensoredcensoredcensoreding league mate.........miles behind,everywhere else is just playing at it.
Seriously.

Sounds like a wonderful moment. Thanks for posting.
Oh, and of all the times I've seen Bruce, NJ/Giants Stadium was the absolute worst crowd. He was still great.