It's one in the morning and I'm fading fast, but what a night!
First, the travels - relatively uneventful, except for passing several fields being worked by (I'm assuming) migrant workers. After the soaring and sobering Border Suite of Tempe, I got to thinking to the mountains in the distance, across the desert - how many meth labs are sequestered back there?
While my mother was sleeping, I decided to have a little fun. Turns out that my car easily tops 110 mph, and had plenty to go. What happened? My mother woke up!
Three folks were meeting me in San Diego from Orange County. Shawn, the college roommate, had seen Bruce with me on the HT/LT tour. Mark, the current roommate, was a Bruce virgin and has only heard me play it on the stereo. Lyle is my supervisor at work, and has a great appreciation for Bruce's storytelling abilities and dedication to his family. I met the three of them at the Corvette Diner, where everyone took turns making fun of Mark's abilities to drive and park his Ford Explorer. After that we went to the LTD get-together at Downtown Johnny Brown's. This was a lot of fun - many people were watching the Yankees game while singing along to the Darkness album on the PA. Turns out that the lady who does the annual celebrity-egg-for-charity thing was there, with an egg for Bruce.
Our seats were in the upper balcony, so we got seated early in the hopes that the Man In Black would smile upon us. First: there were two people giving upgrades, a guy in a red Hard Rock Cafe shirt, and a tall guy with a ponytail wearing denim. The latter was working our side of the auditorium, but we weren't among the lucky. We eventually figured out why - no breasts. It seems that the Man In Denim has a tendency to upgrade only women or couples. Bummer for me. Hopefully my luck will change.
The show: Bruce seemed a lot more on tonight. While he didn't joke around as much as in Tempe, the music seemed clearer and more alive. I eventually decided that this was in part due to better acoustics, and in part to Bruce himself. The moron quotient seemed dangerously high before the show started - a couple of guys from the bar (the ones who were singing the loudest) kept sparking rhythm clapping and shouting at random. Fortunately, everyone behaved themselves.
Johnny 99 - Once again, a stunner. Seemed to get a bit longer, with more intricate guitar work.
Darkness - How in the hell can one man make so much sound come out of a single guitar? As I've heard happens on this tour, I heard this song in a whole new way. I understand now.
BitUSA - WOW!!! Such fury, such growling contempt for the "hired man". I snootily noticed that a guy in the elevator on the way out said, "wow, I didn't recognize Born In The USA until it was almost over."
POINT BLANK!!!!! - Yowza. I'm still stunned that I even heard the damn thing.
Dry Lightning - As I hear this song again and again, I get a greater appreciation for its poetry and storytelling. I particularly like Bruce's appropos intro: "Men and women. Tricky. I didn't write about it for twenty-five years. Too tricky."
Border Suite - Particularly poignant here in San Diego. Every one seemed appreciative and knowing.
This Hard Land - I think that people aren't joining in with "Stay hard, stay hungry, stay alive" because of the greater physical distance between shows. Folks in San Diego just don't read or hear about concerts in Arizona or Denver.
Bobby Jean - Long a personal favorite, this continues to stick in my memory.
Promised Land - I'm working on "getting" this version of the song. Where it used to be a defiant cry, the chorus is now almost a plea of hope in the face of defeat. Check back with me in a couple of shows.
Last, this concert may mark Bruce's first explicit public statement on current politics. Toward the end of the Border Suite (I think that's where it was), Bruce spoke for several minutes against the California state initiative, Proposition 209 (if the proposition passes, it will repeal Affirmative Action in California). Among other things, he said "Affirmative Action has done a lot toward bringing this nation closer to the kind of society I want my kids to grow up in." Has Bruce ever publicly endorsed or denounced a specific candidate or proposition before?
That's it for now.
The highway is alive tonight...
-Andrew
Andrew Laurence atlauren@uci.edu Office of Academic Computing http://www.oac.uci.edu/~atlauren/ UC Irvine