Today is Decades Day at Smoky Mountain High to celebrate homecoming week. So my daughter Kaley Williams asked to borrow something from me from the 80s. We went to our secret nitrogen gas filled vault and opened it. We took out my original Born in the USA US tour shirt that I purchased in 1985 as a junior in high school from the Orange Bowl in Miami. You know the shirt it is in Bruces Dancing in the Dark video where Courtney Cox gets up on stage with Bruce and starts Dancing. Wow, my daughter who is a junior is wearing a shirt I bought as junior. Music transcends time and that shirt brings back so many memories. Everyone in high school knew I was a Springsteen fan including all my teachers. That concert was in the October time of the year and in the middle of the week. My brother Jim Williams scored some tickets to show for a whopping $18. Think about that..a 4.5 rock concert for just $18 bucks. So I skipped school with my moms permission and we drove to Miami in the old Monte Carlo jamming with Bruce on the cassette deck. The cool thing was my teachers all knew too and my absence from class was excused. My englsh teacher, Mrs. Barnes who is my long time friend Alyson Barnes McCoy mother was really cool about me missing school and going to this concert. We race down the Florida Turnpike and we were passed by vehicle after vehcile with shoe polish signs on their windows like Prove it All Night or Ceder Key only evacautes for Bruce Springsteen. Hurricane Elanea just brushed them a few days earlier. We marginally get lost around the Orange Bowl and cram into a city bus where upon being dropped off we raced through the gates as the first drum beat hit and note of Born in the USA crackled through the 10 million watts of esctasy in the stadium. Bruce spared no expense on the sound quality of his stadium shows. He had loud speakers rigged through out the Orange Bowl connected to a computer controlled processor so that the sound you heard on the 40 yard line or in the end zone opposite of the stage would match what you saw on the big screens. I saw Genesis in the Citrus Bowl a couple years later and their speakers were in the norh end zone only and we were on the opposite end of the Citrus Bowl. Between the wind and so forth, that concert although good, had its momments like listening to a cassette tape with drop out. Springsteens shows were amazingly clear and it mattered not where you sat in the stadium. That concert for me was like going to rock and roll Mecca. First it was Springsteen but it was also 4 and half hours long. Bruce poured it out like that in every show and it was the bench mark for me in how a concert should be done. Jimmy and I would have game where we would try to get the name of song before the other, kind of like name that Bruce tune. I did not have many skills in high school, but I had that one. Back then Bruce wove stories of his youth, growing up and so forth into his performances and he would add extra long intros to some of his now classic songs. He closed with what seemed like a 15 minute version of Twist and Shout. That shirt was bought in the 30 minute intermission between each 2 plus hour set. I likely paid too much for a poor quality garmet, but it has lasted all these years and the memories it brings back are sweet as the fall rain falling outside my window. I told Kaley today they made a sleevless one for the ladies and I apologized to her for not having the foresight to purchase one so my daughter as junior in high school could wear it for her Decades Day. She said the shirt was cool as it is....
Posted on: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 12:18:11 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015