When tickets for the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert in Charlotte went on sale in August, buyers found a new option for their $75. Along with the usual reserved seats, Ticketmaster offered something called “Standing Room Main Floor No Seats,” aka General Admission. Standing room used to be regarded as the least desirable ticket a promoter would sell, mainly the result of trying to cram in as many paying customers as the fire marshals would allow. Times have changed. Bowing to the popularity of European-style concerts with their looser party-like atmosphere, which were brought to the US by U2’s last tour, Springsteen decided the concept was worth a try.
Admission to the floor is on a first-come, first-served basis. To control the potential for a deadly crush of people, the floor is divided into two sections. The bulk of the 3,000 or so GA patrons will be in the back part of the floor while the front 25 feet closest to the stage (“The Pit”) is reserved for the first 300 or so people in line.
As you might imagine, the most fanatical start lining up early to get into The Pit. Even though I didn’t have good memories of “festival seating” dating back to the 70s, I figured for Bruce, I’d give it another shot, so I scored a GA ticket for the show in Greensboro last month.
I got to the Greensboro Coliseum at 8am and joined a couple of hundred people who were going through a roll call. A fan-organized process has been established: in short, you show up at a staging area, get a number from the line managers, then show up again for each roll call, held at various intervals. The staggered roll calls mean fans can leave the area, grab some lunch, take a nap, whatever, for awhile. After four roll calls, at 5:30pm, we were led to the arena where we were given wristbands, one for the floor and one for the pit. Around 6:15, the regular GA people were let in. All in all, what could have been a chaotic affair was very systematic and fair.
People were packed in pretty tight by the stage (I was about four feet in front of Clarence Clemmons’ mic stand), but after going through the collective line experience, 99 percent of the people were actually very civil. And why not? Once you’re in The Pit, the worst you can be is 25 feet away!
At 8:14, almost exactly 12 hours after getting my number, Bruce and band took the stage. The experience of being that close to the stage made the long wait worthwhile. I felt like I was 20 years old at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic all over again, which was the last time I was that close to the Boss.
From the first verse of the first song, everyone in The Pit was dancing and singing along and Springsteen made an effort to interact with everyone in the place, from those of us a couple of feet away to those folks way up in the rafters we’d forgotten about.
He and the band worked their way through old and new material and Springsteen even treated us to a solo piano version of “Incident on 57th Street,” a song most of us old Springsteen diehards had long since given up hope of ever hearing again.
After an hour and a half of blood, sweat, and tears, he closed out the “main portion” of the show — meaning there was still an hour to go.
His first encore consisted of rocked over versions of “Dancing in the Dark,” “Glory Days,” and the classic “Born to Run.” The “last” encore consisted of “My City of Ruins,” “Born in the USA,” and “Land of Hope and Dreams.”
In a normal show, that would’ve been it, but as a treat to particularly good crowds, the Boss will sometimes throw in “Ramrod.” He must have thought the crowd was really good in Greensboro, as “Ramrod” went on for nearly 10 minutes finally concluding with Bruce leading the band off stage (while still playing their instruments) in single file. Roy Bittan, the last man left on stage, went on with a blues-boogie-woogie piano solo for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, Bruce, Steven, and Clarence snuck back on stage, carrying flashlights, to finish out the song and 2 hours and 45 minutes of honest to God rock & roll.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform at the Charlotte Coliseum, Sunday, December 8, at 7:30pm. For ticket availability call the coliseum Box Office at 704-357-4801.
This article appears in Dec 4-10, 2002.
