Yes, my wife is very cool. She went out and bought these for us a few weeks ago:

Springsteen at Dodger Stadium on a warm summer night. How cool is that?

I’m losing track of how many times I’ve seen Springsteen in concert. I think this will be #6. My Bruce history:

1. On my birthday at L.A.’s Sports Arena on the Born In The USA tour. Up ’til this point, I had always mocked Springsteen and his fans. I just didn’t get it. But my college newspaper buddy Derek and I used to go to his apartment after class, get drunk, watch Jeopardy, and he’d play Born In The USA over and over and over and over again until I knew every word and liked some of the songs. So when Derek found out it was my birthday and we weren’t doing anything about it, he suggested we go to the Sports Arena, where Springsteen was playing that night, and try to get will-call tickets. We did, we got great seats, and I walked out a to-the-bone Springsteen fan.

2. A few nights later, same venue.

3. A year later, L.A. Coliseum, still the Born In The USA tour, now gone stadium-sized. I took the aerobics instructor I was dating at the time, we rode my motorcycle to the show. She did not appreciate the wonderfulness that was Bruce. I stopped dating her soon after.

4. A few years later, again the L.A. Sports Arena, again will-call tickets, on the Tunnel Of Love tour.

4a. Sigh… The show I missed. During the dotcom era I was working for drkoop.com and they announced an internal essay contest for two tickets to see Springsteen when he came to Austin on the E Street Band’s reunion tour in 2000. I wrote a funny yet moving entry about why I should win the tickets and whoever read it agreed that, yes, I should win the tickets. They were going to fly me and Beth to Austin, put us up in a hotel, chauffer us to the concert, and then fly us home again. It was going to be sweet. And then I got hit by a car. After that, I was in so much pain there was no way I could sit in an airline seat for three hours (it still hurts to sit in those seats for too long), so I told them to give my tickets to someone else. (If you follow the link to the roadkill story, let me warn you against following the “next” link at the bottom of that page — it will lead you to a picture of my naked ass. You don’t want to see my naked ass.)

5. A few months later, same tour, L.A.’s Staples Center. Beth claims she surprised me with the tickets for my birthday and I didn’t feel much like going — I thought maybe he was too old, we were too old, that the old magic would be gone, but that I loved every minute when we got there. This sounds insane to me, but Beth’s memory is better than mine so I’ll grudgingly stipulate that maybe I had a brain cloud or something that day.

6. A few days later, again at Staples, again will-call tickets. We had brunch nearby that morning and decided on a whim to see if we could get seats. We did, good ones. Seriously, will-call tickets are the way to go. I’ve gotten great seats every time — and only paid face value.

7. A few months later I was in NYC working for PaineWebber when I realized Springsteen was playing Madison Square Garden. Bruce in New York. His home town. I had to go. Our team had some big teambuilding exercise going that night where attendance was mandatory. I asked my boss if I could be excused to go to the concert and suggested he should say yes since I was going either way. He said yes. (Although it’s my then [and now] coworker Gavin‘s memory that I got in trouble for going.) This was one of the best of his shows that I’ve seen. High point: hearing them do 41 Shots and feeling the surge of anger and sadness rush through the crowd.

Okay, I’m wrong. Tomorrow will be #8. I can’t wait.