Meeting Across the River

It’s June 2013 and the Wrecking Ball tour is still travelling on around the world, now on its second European leg. I’ve already been lucky enough to catch 4 shows in Sweden (Gothenburg x 2, July 2012 and Stockholm x 2, May 2013) and now a show in London is up for grabs. If I decide to go, it is going to be my first Bruce Springsteen concert abroad.

After I have bought the tickets for the Wembley-Show on June 15th, there is a lot of talk on Twitter about a pre-party hosted by BruceBud Tony Ginger. The pub Pride of Paddington in London has been booked the day before the show for BruceBuds only. Many of my Twitter friends are going so I’m decide to go to that happening too.

The party in the PoP turns out to be such a fun event. The pub is packed with BruceBuds. People drinking, talking, singing and dancing all evening. Tony Ginger and the lovely Jackie Barnett perform Springsteen covers live on stage, a group of people leave for roll calls and come back again.

It is the weirdest thing to meet and talk to people who you have never met IRL before, only to find out that you already know them somehow, through interactions on Twitter (recognising them because of their profile pic) and because of a shared passion.

“Jake is here, Jake is here!”

All of a sudden I hear someone says: “Jake is here, Jake is here” and so he is (!). Yes, it is true; Jake Clemons suddenly shows up for a beer, saying hello to everyone, graciously posing for photos with those who want.

The show? Here are some notes:

• Kicking off with Land of Hope and Dreams, closing with solo acoustic Thunder Road, the set also included favourites of mine like: This Hard Land and Lost in the Flood (both sign requests).
• Roy Bittan’s brilliant piano solo during Racing in the Street resonating hauntingly over Wembley in the late summer night (still echoes in my heart).
• A perfect view without having to stand on my toes or having to jump up and down to get a glimpse of Bruce over someone’s shoulder as I usually have to. It makes me wonder if British people aren’t as tall as Swedish (?)
• The Wembley Stadium. What a lovely venue and how perfectly well organised the evacuation of the venue was after the show, in contrast to Friends Arena, Stockholm, which was chaotic.