There's no doubt about it. I am a Springsteen fanatic. I have seen The Boss in concert about 9 times. I also have an extensive collection of CDs, records, tapes, and MP3 files.

I first became a fan in the summer of 1984 when I saw Bruce at the old Capital Centre in Landover, MD during the Born In The U.S.A. tour. I will never forget that first concert. It was amazing. I became a fanatic almost instantly. I rushed out and bought all of the albums I could find. I was lucky enough to have a friend who knew someone in the Capital Centre ticket office so we got to go to two of the four shows that he played at the Capital Centre that year. The next summer I was introduced to the world of ticket scalping when I had to shell out about $200 for two seats to the show at RFK Stadium.

The next time that Bruce came to town was 1988 during the Tunnel Of Love tour. Again I was lucky enough to get tickets to both of the shows at the Capital Centre. I can still remember camping out all night in Laurel, MD behind Hechts.

After the Tunnel Of Love tour Bruce joined up with some other artists to perform in the Human Rights Now tour for Amnesty International. This tour came to Philadelphia but I was not lucky enough to get tickets when they went on sale. However a few weeks before the concert I got a call from my buddy Peter. He and I were both going to the University of Maryland at the time and he was calling me from the school library. It turns out that he had been talking to one of the librarians there who was a member of Amnesty International. And it turned out that this guy had a ticket to the concert and was not interested in going at all! Peter asked me if I wanted to buy the ticket. That was a no-brainer. So Peter paid the guy for it and I paid Peter back.

So I was going to the Human Rights Now concert in Philadelphia. However I only had one ticket. I asked my girlfriend at the time if she wanted to go with me. She was interested but was worried because we only had one ticket. I suggested that we could just buy a scalped ticket once we got up there and then we could somehow find a way to sit together. She was less adventurous. So I ended up going by myself.

I woke up on the day of the concert sick as a dog. I really did not feel well. However I was young and a fanatic and I was not going to miss a concert by The Boss. So in the afternoon I borrowed my parents station wagon and set out up Rt. 95 to Philadelphia. I didn't know exactly where JFK stadium was but I had glanced at a map and knew that it was just off Rt. 95 somewhere. I was driving along at a good pace as I got near Philadelphia when I saw a long line of cars forming in the right hand lane. That must be it! So I jumped into line with the other cars. Fortunately that turned out to be a good guess and soon I was parked in a gravel parking lot underneath some bridge. I was really feeling terrible at this point. It was a chilly September evening. I just sat in my seat at the stadium for the first three or four acts. I am also a big Sting fan so I did stand up and pay attention during his set. Finally Bruce was the last to go on stage. It was a good show although it was obviously shorter because there where other acts playing also.

Afterwards I stumbled back to my car with the rest of Western civilization. There was a huge backup getting out of the parking lot so I decided to lay down in the station wagon and take a little snooze until the traffic died down a bit. I was feeling even worse by this time. So I drifted off to sleep. When I woke up it was quite a bit later and there I was sitting in a station wagon underneath some bridge in Philadelphia all by myself. I jumped up, started the car and headed home. Only problem was I wasn't exactly sure of which way to go. I had basically followed the crowd into the parking lot. So I did my best to just look for signs to Rt. 95. Pretty quickly I found a sign that pointed to Rt. 95 so I headed that way. Once I got on Rt. 95 I realized that I was headed North instead of South. No problem I thought. I'll just find an exit to turn around. Well I must have driven for 30 or 40 minutes before I found an exit that I was sure I could turn around on and get back on 95 in the right direction. So that added an extra hour or so onto my trip home. After many stops at rest stops on the way back I finally made it home. I think that I missed about a week or two of classes after that because of how sick I was. In retrospect it probably wasn't the smartest decision in my life. But heck I was only 23 at the time.

In 1992/93 Bruce toured again in support of the Human Touch / Lucky Town albums. This time tickets went on sale right around the time that I was getting married. So as part of my wedding present my buddy Peter camped out all night with me and bought tickets for me to see the show.

The next time that Bruce came to town was in 1995 during the Ghost Of Tom Joad tour. This was a tough one. Bruce was playing by himself at only very small theaters throughout the country. Tickets went on sale only a few weeks before the show. The show was set at Constitution Hall in DC for December 5th. However my wife was pregnant with our first baby and was due during the last week of November. Big dilemma! Well, I went and camped out at a local Kemp Mill records in Germantown when tickets went on sale. I kept calling home every few hours during the night to make sure that Jennifer had not gone into labor! The night passed uneventfully and I was able to secure two tickets in the morning! However, when it came to the day of the show she had still not given birth yet. So I borrowed a friend's beeper (set on vibrate of course - Bruce had made it very clear that all beepers were to be turned off during the show) and headed downtown. I had tested the beeper a number of times to make sure that I would be able to feel it in case it went off, but just to be sure I held that thing in my hand all night long. Well, it was a FANTASTIC show and the beeper never went off. Our first daughter, Abigail, was born three days later.

In 1999 Bruce and the E Street Band visited DC during the Reunion tour. When tickets went on sale I tried the phone method instead of camping out, but I was shut out. However a few days later they announced that they had opened a bunch more seats at the MCI Center. Luckily someone posted that announcement to the Lucky Town Digest (a Bruce fan email list) and I read it during the day while I was at work. I immediately called up and bought a ticket! What a stroke of luck. The Reunion show was tremendous and I had a blast.

The Rising was released in 2002 and along with it came another world tour. I found out when tickets were going to go on sale for the Washington, DC show and decided this time to try my luck at a local used record store up here in Frederick that had a TicketMaster outlet. With a brand new baby at home, camping overnight for tickets didn't really seem like a viable option. So I got up early on the Saturday that they were going on sale and made my way over to the record store. Well I was happily suprised to discover that I was ninth in line! I easily got two good seats and as I was heading back to the car I called my wife to let her know that I had gotten tickets. She told me that our neighbor behind us who was over visiting in the morning turned out to be a HUGE Springsteen fan and was out of her mind because she didn't realize that tickets were going on sale! So I told her that I would see what I could do and ran back inside the record store. Well it turned out that there was only one last person in line by then so I just got back in line and was able to buy two more tickets for Linda and her friend to go to the show also.

Jenn and I went to the show in August and had a great time. In fact we happened to bump in to Linda and her friend while we were there and they were very excited. The show was good although the sound quality really left something to be desired. Hopefully the next time they come back to the MCI Center they will have better sound.