Bruce!

This morning, a fellow blogger and old friend of mine posted a question on her Facebook page.  She was talking about how all of her friends were going to amazing concerts this summer and that she was feeling a bit jealous.  She posed the question, “What was the latest and best concert you ever attended.”  Without a doubt, I have a story that Dave and I will never be able to beat.  Although it was not recent, it is still a great story and I thought I’d share it here.

Dave absolutely loves Bruce Springsteen and about fourteen years ago, I bought him tickets to see him play at an arena near our home.  I gave them to him for Father’s Day that year.  He was so excited.  The seats were not good at all.  Top tier, one of the last rows, but it didn’t matter.  We were going to see Bruce and that is all that mattered to Dave.

We got to the show early and were walking around the arena while we waited for the show.  Dave went to use the bathroom and I was waiting for him outside of the door.  Now, there is a bit of a back story here…Dave always says that I am too curious, but I like to know what is going on and if people around me are talking, I often hear what is going on.  I can’t help it.  I am just inquisitive 🙂 So back to the story…

I saw a young guy wearing all black and a lanyard with an employee tag around his neck.  I only heard part of what he was saying, but I heard him telling two women about “bad seats” being upgraded.  He was offering them different seats for the ones that they had, but since their entire party wasn’t together, they couldn’t take advantage of it.  I told Dave about this guy when he came out of the bathroom and he just shook his head.  I said, “I am looking for him anyway.”  Sure enough I found him and asked just how bad the tickets had to be to get upgraded.  He asked to see our tickets and he said, “these will do.”  He took them and gave us two new tickets.  Dave was not pleased, thinking I just lost his tickets and had gotten scammed.  We were already inside of the arena, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad.  Right?

We walked to the section on the tickets and the first thing the usher said to us was, “Where did you get these tickets?”  Dave just looked at me as if to say, “I told you so,” and I told her that a man in black had exchanged our tickets with these.  She said okay and let us into the section.  We walked down the stairs to the first row where we thought our seats were.  When we got to those seats, another usher asked us how we got those tickets.  We told him the same thing and he also said okay but this time opened a gate that allowed us onto the floor.  FLOOR SEATS???  We couldn’t believe it.  We kept walking until we reached the front row!!  So close, that we were handed earplugs because it would be so loud.  A woman in our row asked us how we got those seats because she heard that some people, like us, had been upgraded.  We told her the story and she just stood there with her mouth wide open.  She and her friends had paid a thousand dollars a seat to sit there!

We sat through the most amazing concert every.  I was so close to Clarence Clemons, I actually got his sweat on me.  Gross, I know, but how many people can say that?!!?  My ears were ringing for the rest of the night after that show.  We found out later, that Bruce does this often and then takes the tickets that were upgraded and hands them out to others who are outside the arena hoping to get seats for the show.

Bruce has come to play in our area many times since that night.  Dave refuses to go again.  He says there is no way another Bruce concert can compare to that one and he’s right.  It was a once in a life time opportunity… all because I  had been nosy curiously listening!

 

 

Tagged: Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen concert, Clarence Clemons, make your own luck, Men in Black, sometimes being nosy pays off