I actually heard about this movie about 3 months ago, so I immediately jumped on-line to book a seat, and the cinema was already 90% sold. I still managed to get my usual seat though.
Springsteen fans are certainly an unusual bunch, that's for sure. You get the hard core, who were there from day one and have every concert tape and bootleg you can think off. They seem to be quite hard on the newbies like me, who only started to get into Bruce around the Born in the USA days. I think they feel a bit superior because they knew him before most other people did.
There are very few people whose albums I buy as soon as they are released, and Bruce is one. I have nearly all the official releases, plus a bunch of concert tapes I traded some CD's for, and a bunch of bootleg vinyl albums that I bought about twenty years ago over the Internet from a guy in America (this was prior to eBay. I was working at a university at the time so I had access to unlimited broadband before the rest of the world knew about it). I was after a legendary bootleg I had read about, called All Those Years, so I placed an online advertisement and a guy from the US said he had it, plus a bunch of others. So I said I wanted all he had (he had just migrated to CD and didn't want his vinyl anymore). I sent him the money on faith, and low and behold everything showed up a short time later, and I was very happy to see that everything was in pristine condition (he told me he hadn't played them much because he didn't have a record player anymore).
These are some of my other bootlegs. I was always amazed at just how well these albums were produced. The printing is extremely professional.
Bruce also had an influence on my very limited musical career. Back about twenty years ago, I got to hang out with my friends band, and I even got a chance to play a "gig" (in my case, that's cool muso speak for "pretend you know what you are doing"...). I bought a certain model of guitar because I saw Bruce play one once: a genuine American made Fender Telecaster, in black. And this is a recent picture of it:
Anyway, back to the movie now:
I came out of this movie feeling very, very happy. This is very much a fan friendly, feel good documentary. It's basically a bunch of home made fan videos of people talking about Bruce. It's funny at times, moving at others. I particularly liked the guy who dressed as Elvis and got to sing on stage.
Before I went to see this movie I jumped on YouTube to see if there was anything related to this movie, and I found a bunch of little movies made by people about their experiences with Bruce. I remember thinking, "Well, I've seen most of the movie now". I was very surprised and happy to see that the stories on YouTube were not in the movie, and that the stories in the movie were not on YouTube, so it's clear that there are many more of these little Bruce stories out there. I'll certainly be looking up some more.
There was a huge bonus for me after the documentary portion of the show finished. They showed a small portion of a concert that Bruce did last year in Hyde Park, London. That was fantastic. With the loud sound it was like being at a Bruce concert. The show was great, but for me, the best was about to happen. At one point, Bruce is joined on stage by one Paul McCartney. I almost lost my mind. They did two songs, a great version of I Saw Her Standing There, which then segued into Twist and Shout. It was a glorious moment. There are only really two people I want to see live before I die: Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney. I've seen McCartney, so that only leaves Bruce. I think I will start saving up for a trip to New York City and the "Garden"...
I'm still floating a bit...
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