

His bandmates, all of them septuagenarians, move even less during the night. The energy is there, but he’s not racing around the stage. Today, Bruce Springsteen is an old man, not simply a thirtysomething who seems ancient from a teenager’s point of view. Mika and I looked at each other and giggled. Mighty Max took a deep breath and got to work. Another band he had educated me about decades ago.Īt 8.15 pm the band walks onto the stage, Bruce Springsteen as the last person to appear. “I just want to hear Mighty Max kick it off,” I said.Ībout an hour before the scheduled start time, we had made our way as close to the stage as we could, and waited, me in my new Springsteen T-shirt, Mika in his Southside Johnny T-shirt. What was he going to play? Which of our favourite songs would we hear? I wanted to hear “Night” but I had seen on the Internet that he had only played it twice in the five months the band had been on tour. We spent the day of the show talking about it. Then I heard nothing for another month, so I thought his deal had fallen through until he sent another text: “Still want to go to the Springsteen show?”Īnd that’s how we found ourselves taking the train to Gothenburg and staying overnight on a small sailboat in the harbor, falling asleep to the smell of newly printed concert T-shirts. I had seen him twice – once in Sweden, once in Helsinki – and the magic seemed to be gone. We had talked about Boss’s upcoming tour when it was announced, but I decided that I wasn’t going to pay “big bucks” – that the record company hadn’t paid me – for the show. “How old is he again?”Īlmost two months ago, I got a text from Mika. “Besides Botox, what else do you think he’s done,” I said and showed her Bruce’s shiny forehead on the cover. That night, as I was reading it, I showed the cover to Wife. The other day, I bought a magazine in the store, with Springsteen on the cover. To me.Įven though I didn’t have a driver’s license. With your faith in your machine off you scream into the night The circuit’s lined and jammed with chromed invadersĪnd she’s so pretty that you’re lost in the starsĪnd sit at the light, as it changes to green We came to a red light, Bruce came to the second verse. One evening, as we were driving home from hockey practice, “Night” was blasting off the speakers of our car. But I played it every day at home, in our car, in my Walkman. We read about Bruce’s marathon gigs somewhere in the US, but it being 1984 and us being in a provincial small town in Finland, we couldn’t even imagine ever seeing him in concert.ĭuring that one winter, I listened to Born to Run every afternoon for months, often falling asleep with Side B still playing. You say you’re tired and you just want to close your eyes Tonight I hear the neighborhood drummer sound We learned more from a three-minute record, baby He also had all the remixes of Springsteen’s hits, which he let me borrow, too. Then I graduated to Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River and Mika explained the nuances of the clever lyrics to me. And he explained his and Bruce’s friendship to me.

It was Mika who told me that Bruce Springsteen was The Boss, that pianist Roy Bittan was called “Professor”, drummer Max Weinberg “Mighty Max”, and saxophone player Clarence Clemons “The Big Man.” And that Steven van Zandt, or Little Steven was also “Miami Steve”. We spent days and weeks in his room in Rantakylä in Joensuu, listening to Born in the USA, and it was his copy of the wildly popular album that I got to borrow so that I could get it on tape myself. In fact, it was Mika who first told me about him. Terry’s talk about Bruce being so old baffled me because Mika had never mentioned his age to me, let alone that he’d be wearing a toupee.Īnd Mika knew everything about Springsteen. Terry exchanged “my” to “your.” We both thought it was funny. Except for when he came to the line, “I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face.” Then he rewound the tape back to the beginning of the song, and sang along. I sat down on the sofa and listened to Terry deliver his verdict. He was about to make an Annoucement, and I’d better be ready for it.
Was edge of darkness based on a true story full#
He paused the video and waited for to give him my full attention as his often did. It was Bruce Springsteen “ Dancing in the Dark” with Monica from Friends, even though nobody knew it back then.Īnd Terry certainly didn’t care. On the screen, there was a man in a white shirt that was unbuttoned halfway down and sleeves rolled up to reveal his biceps.
Was edge of darkness based on a true story tv#
One day when I got home from school Terry was sitting in our TV chair, his feet on our dog’s back, his eyes glued to a music video on TV.
