This evening I was flipping through the channels and came across a Bruce Springsteen concert on VH1 Classic.  I have always liked Bruce Springsteen – I have seen him in concert three times, twice on the River Tour and once on the Born in the USA tour.

In particular, I remember the first time I saw him which was at the Capital Center in Largo, Maryland (outside of Washington, DC).  I had only been to one or two concerts before that concert so I was ill prepared for a Springsteen show.  I had gone with a group of people I had worked with at Hardee’s.  The show was unbelievable – the energy, the sound, the crowd, the noise, everything.  It just went on and on, I coudn’t believe it.  I got home really late and I remember my mom being up and not believing me that all I had done was go to the concert (which was actually true).  There was a write up in the Washington Post the next day about how it didn’t end until 1AM or something like that so I was ultimately redeemed!

I am not sure what possessed me to look Bruce Springsteen up on Wikipedia but I did and near the bottom is a link to old concert tours and sets lists.  I start poking around it and sure enough, I find the two shows I saw at the Capital Center.  I was at the November 24, 1980 show and the August 7, 2001 show.  I cannot believe the detailed information available for concerts that happened almost 30 years ago.  For what its worth, I also saw him at the Spectrum in Philadelphia when I was at Villanova which would have been in September of 1984.  There were six shows at the Spectrum, I don’t recall which one I went to.