Saturday, August 25, 2012

Springsteen braindump

If this was in fact real life that just happened, I think I just went to my very first Bruce Springsteen concert!

- Highest density of white people I've ever seen in one place! Yes, I grew up in a nearly all-white community, but there were more people in skydome than in the whole town.

- I've never been in skydome before (for a concert or anything else) and it was bigger and louder than I expected, but I like the washroom and concession setup. You can still hear the performance while you pee.

- Thank you to the guy behind us for being such excellent DVD commentary for us n00bs!

- I can't believe how many times the pit cameras caught people filming Springsteen with their phones when they could instead have reached out their hand and actually touched him!

- He took someone's beer and then dribbled most of it down his shirt while acting like he was drinking. Waste of beer!

- Jack of all Trades + Murder Incorporated = Dude can't find a job so becomes a hitman

- The little girl who sang along with Sunny Day was entirely too confident, which made that bit of business less charming for me. However, My Favourite Little Person is totally going to grow up to be her.

- The crowd collectively knows the harmony lines to Badlands, Thunder Road, 10th Ave. and Glory Days.

- Normally, I actually do sing the harmony lines because I have a shamefully narrow vocal range and nearly all Bruce Springsteen songs are in a bad key for me. However, in this loud stadium in this giant crowd, unable to hear my own voice, I was able to sing the melody line and hit notes (mostly low) that I've never been able to hit before. I couldn't hear myself, but I have enough training to tell that I hit them by feel. Not sure what happened there.

- At the beginning, people were deliberately applauding Jake for (literally, I hear) filling Clarence's shoes, then partway through they weren't doing that so much so I was thinking the crowd got accustomed to it and that was good, then they started doing it again towards the end (triggered by Land of Hopes and Dreams).

- The video camera guys and the people who decide what to put on which screen when really know what they're doing! During any live performance, I watch what the people in the background are doing, and (as far as I could see from my half-assed seats, at least) the cameras didn't miss anything interesting.

- The anniversary couple is totally going to go home and have sex and both pretend the other person is Bruce.

- I'm surprised how many people had signs for songs that he was going to play anyway! Playlists are documented religiously! Why waste your sign on Rosalita?

- Unless their goal was to get their sign used rather than get a song that they actually want played.

- I still think Springsteen needs to cover Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Love, We Will Rock You, Fat-Bottomed Girls, etc.

- Apparently the way to get Bruce to play your song is to draw dirty pictures on your sign.

- (Maybe that strategy could be used to get him to play Fat-Bottomed Girls?)

- I'm surprised how many children they were, and how young some of them were. Especially since they (or at least all the ones that showed up on camera) were in the pit, and the internet tells me the pit people had to be there from like three hours before the concert started.

- Songs that made me happy that I can remember: Sunny Day, Thunder Road, Hopes and Dreams, Glory Days, Jack of all Trades, Shackled and Drawn, and at least two others that are slipping my mind.

- But, of all those songs, it's Rosalita, which I don't even like, that's stuck in my head.

- I managed to time my pee break so I didn't miss any songs that it would have made me sad to miss!

- Apart from being amazed at how much energy the band has to play over 3 hours and give absolutely 100% to every single thing (including moments where I was like "I can't believe he's putting so much into that one part when I really don't think anyone would notice or care if he did it calmly), I'm amazed that they can go so long without peeing!!! I also didn't see anyone drinking water (apart from the whole collapse/sponge/water physical comedy thing), although they must have at some point.

- I'm really surprised the whole collapse/sponge/water thing played out as well as it did and for as long as it did, although by that point people would have clapped for anything.

- From my perch far above, I saw two different people with whom I'm casually acquainted and who are most likely casually acquainted with each other on different parts of the floor. I don't think they saw each other.

- Before the concert started, we had enormous fun watching crew people climb up rope ladders and scaffold and speculate on what they were doing. (Conclusion: best tree fort ever!)

- I wonder how much it would have cost to make the CN Tower lights coordinate with the stage lights.

- I'm a total n00b who's just been studying these past few weeks (I hate going into a concert not knowing the songs) and there was only one song I didn't recognize (the slow piano solo one- update: the internet just told me it's called incident on 57th street). My friend (MFLP's mommy, who really needs her own blog name because she was here first) was even more of a n00b and didn't study at all (it's like raising her child is time-consuming or something!) and she reports that the concert was awesome for her.

- MFLP's daddy and I had a disagreement over how long it takes to walk between union station and skydome. I thought a short time, he thought a long time. Turns out it was a long time, but that's not because of the distance but rather the crowds. Tons and tons of people walking slowly in clumps in front of you, with the entire population of fanexpo coming in the other direction! It would take a short time if you were the only one.

- Things I learned about skydome/rogers centre: the gate on your ticket is important! We tried to walk in the first door we came to, and the guy made us go around to the gate on our ticket number.

- The only negative of the whole experience was Roger's Centre's bottle lid policy. I came in with a 330 mL sealed commercial brand water bottle in my purse. The purse searching lady said I could only bring it in if I gave her the lid. So then I was stuck with an open bottle. I drank some water, my friend drank some water, but an open bottle is a really inconvenient thing to have so I threw it out. Then I noticed the people walking up and down the aisles hawking water didn't confiscate the lid - which is such bullshit because the bottles they were selling were twice as big as the bottle I wanted to bring in! - and doubly bullshit since they sell beer in cans which are also bigger than the bottle I wanted to bring in and also made of metal and also explode if you shake them! - but I was too far from the aisle to attract their attention. However, halfway through the show I got thirsty, so I bought a bottle from one of the concessions (for $4.75!!!!) - and the guy confiscated the lid before he handed it over! So I was stuck with an open bottle again, and spent the vast majority of my very first Bruce Springsteen concert trying not to spill my water when I should have been uninhibitedly jumping up and down like an idiot! Dear Rogers Centre: you need to either give us water in cups with lids, or install cupholders on the seats, or let us bring fricking water bottles in like grownups! This quite seriously hindered my ability to uninhibitedly enjoy my very first Bruce Springsteen concert, and that's simply not acceptable!

12 comments:

laura k said...

Ooo, I have to read this more carefully later today. I am going to try to write about the show, too. Not sure how I'll suceed.

I liked knowing you were there last night. :)

laura k said...

"The anniversary couple is totally going to go home and have sex and both pretend the other person is Bruce."

Yes! Can you believe that was the last thing he said onstage, Happy Anniversary?! VERY cool.

After he danced with the young girl, I was thinking, he should dance with an older fan... and then he held up that sign! *melt*

allan said...

And there is the bonus that since he is 62 years old (!?!), the old "I'm-too-tired-to-go-on" bit might actually have more than a touch of reality to it!

Plus, he doesn't play a hit like Rosalita every night. Maybe every 3 or 4 shows now. So it was definitely a treat!

laura k said...

"I'm really surprised the whole collapse/sponge/water thing played out as well as it did and for as long as it did, although by that point people would have clapped for anything."

I think it worked because it's an inside joke, being a standard at his all-out shows for so many years (decades).

The whole thing about the water, the price, the inconvenience and etc. is standard fare for stadiums and I agree, it SUCKS. I think it's accepted wisdom (whether true or not) that it's not about projectiles so much as forcing you to pay outrageous prices for thirst-quenching.

impudent strumpet said...

I'd just be rolling my eyes but not even bothering to complain if they'd let me keep the lid of the water I bought from concession. But they took that lid too, which actually made it worse because there was even more water to potentially spill than if I'd kept my own bottle. Selling water at outrageous prices is one thing, but selling water at outrageous prices in containers that won't hold the water during the conditions in question is disgusting! Meanwhile, some of it did spill in my purse, which ruined my ticket (so I can't keep it as a souvenir!) and might have ruined my ipod! (Touch screen stopped working, I have to go to the apple store tomorrow to figure out what happened if keeping it in a bag of rice doesn't fix the problem.

laura k said...

Wow, awful! I know you tweeted them, but you might want to actually email customer service. I once did after a bad experience at a Jays game, and they were very good. There wasn't much they could do about it at the moment, but they seemed to take my concerns seriously.

impudent strumpet said...

I'm definitely doing that after I get my ipod professionally diagnosed. I don't want to hurt the credibility of my complaint by falsely accusing them of ruining my ipod, but I certainly want to include the fact that my ipod was ruined and the cost of repairing or replacing if it turns out it was water damage!

impudent strumpet said...

And I kind of resent the fact that I just saw Bruce fucking Springsteen, but instead of thinking about that I'm thinking about water bottles and ipods!

laura k said...

I would resent it, too!

Did you see the props to Toronto here?

laura k said...

Ack, wrong link. Forgot the Bruce in the URL. Here.

impudent strumpet said...

I did! My friend and I have decided to take credit, since our delightful presence is clearly what was missing from previous concerts :p

laura k said...

Well done!