Music America night 1 Discussion
I went in not really knowing what to expect at all. Here’s my take:
Largely irrelevant but I’ll add here to warn others for Pre show dining - we went to Jacks, which is sorta the College dive about 3/4ths of a mile from campus. They weren’t ready for a crowd, as if they’re fully in summer mode now that the college kids are done. Service was terribly slow and overwhelmed even though the place wasn’t really busy at all.
Entry - we parked around 7. The line to get in was very long, stretching past home plate on the baseball field if you’re familiar with the layout of campus. It was sorta refreshing though as it was very orderly rather than the scrum that occurs at Prudential. Took probably 15 minutes to enter. Thankfully it was a picture perfect night weather wise. I’d urge you to be parked and get to the entry point by 630 Tomorrow night if you don’t want to miss anything. I think you can probably miss the first few acts without feeling too sad though. If you have floor seats (double letter sections AA,Bb,CC I think), they had a separate line that was much shorter. Parking is free and fairly ample. I’d recommend trying to park on the north side of the venue as that’s a much smaller lot and it was easy to exit post show.
We missed the first few minutes of the show due to the line. There was some sort of Native American act ending their performance when we sat down.
Whoever the emcee was (we missed his intro due to the late entry) was not dynamic whatsoever. in our seats (section Q, total side stage almost rear) it was hard to hear him. Same for most of the other spoken word intros if they didn’t project. this was my only major complaint.
Otherwise the production was good considering the challenges of getting everyone on and off stage. No live video screen of the show, but the venue is small enough that you didn’t really need it.
The first half was a little slow until Trombone Shorty got the crowd going. Most of the acts did 2 songs or so, except Kenny Chesney who only did one. That was my biggest disappointment as I’m a pretty big fan of his. I won’t spoil any of the setlist for those that want to seek out videos of it, just to be safe.
Once the Man came on stage to end the night, it was clear why 90%+ of the audience was there. No surprise. He did 2 folk songs and brought back Kenny for a very rousing rendition a folk song. Dropkick Murphy’s also brought the house down with a few hits. The closer with Trombone Shorty and the entire cast was, while predictable, a perfect ending. Perhaps Bruce giving a little speech and a solo song or something, or at least a thanks for coming so we knew the show was over, would have been appreciated. But The vibes were tremendous by the end as far as I’m concerned.
If you were expecting 3 hours of Bruce sitting in with everyone you were sorely disappointed. Hopefully no one went in with that assumption. But this was a unique show that I’m very glad I attended and will go down as another memorable day in Springsteen history., especially given the relatively quaint size of the venue. This show basically ranged thematically from the first half of the 20th century, so I wonder if tomorrow’s show will be less folk music and more Motown/Rock music based? Who knows, but I’m sure it will be equally memorable. I would go if presented the opportunity but wouldn’t pay top dollar for a scalped ticket.
One other general FYI I’d add is they appeared to have a very strict no scalping/transferring tickets rule. I had a friend who couldn’t make it and he gave his mobile login to his father who added the tickets. They didn’t check IDs at all so you won’t have any issues getting in if you are in a similar spot. F@!$ scalpers though, please don’t take this tidbit as encouragement to do that as this was a reasonably priced ticket(for once) given venue size.
I still want to hear the back story of how this came together. Did Bruce call in favors to all these people? No surprise that Dropkick Murphys or Brian Fallon showed up as their Bruce fanatics like the rest of us. But there’s no realistic amount of money Kenny Chesney could have been paid to come, he had to have been beckoned and graciously agreed. Only huge surprise was no cameo by Little Steven or Patti, which I guess given her health perhaps isn’t a huge surprise.
Curious to hear others thoughts!