Born in the USA

No. I am not talking about myself. I was born in India and grew up there. I came to the US about 15 years back but I am an US citizen. Though I cannot become the president, I have every right as people here claim it. My friend Kristens’ Birthday was yesterday, May 18th and her husband, Marc, Surprised her by taking her to a music concert last night. The band is famous for the song that is same as the title of today’s blog. Yes, you guessed it right – The E street Band, led by Bruce Springsteen.

My friends are from NJ, settled here in VA and they are die hard fans of Bruce as he is from NJ as well. So when this concert came into planning, he booked a room in the Lexus Suite in Verizon Center and had called his and her family and friends to surprise her on her birthday which is the same day as the concert. The concert was scheduled to begin at 7.30pm, so people arrived at 7pm to grab a quick bite of dinner that was served in the suite. People were trickling in the Verizon center general seating area and they were also standing before the stage.

When the tickets for this concert were opened for sale, all tickets were sold out in fifteen minutes. The big tickets selling names like ticket master and other business had monopolized in buying the tickets in bulk and hence the tickets were gone in a few minutes after being opened for public sale. Then these big companies would turn around and sell those tickets to the public for a higher price. Yet, people bought those tickets to see Bruce in action. The entire auditorium was packed and it looked like ant hill with ant crawling all over the auditorium.

Artists pick their own time of arrival depending on how famous and wanted they are. Don’t believe me – Go to any concert of your choice and you will see when the actual program starts depending on the artists. In this case, Bruce is an old-timer. He is a rock song artist from the 70’s and the 80’s and had been awarded many awards for his albums. He is also called ‘The Boss’. So his program scheduled to start at 7.30pm, started at 8.30pm. He opened the night by singing ‘Badlands’, followed by many popular songs like ‘She's The One’, ‘Little Latin Lupe Lu’, ‘Blinded By The Light’, and ‘Born To Run’.

The guy is 60 years old but the energy he showed in his singing and playing the harmonica was that of 40-45 years old. The concert started off with the words of his songs perceptible to ones ears but then as time went by, the energy in his songs were so high, that the music was all one big congregate of instrumental note. The words were not that clear which made the songs showier of the tunes. But I am sure that many of the folks who were present at the concert enjoyed Bruce despite the loud music. I am old fashioned in that regard when it comes to music. The words of the song have to be audible and pleasant to the ears even in a rock song. Even in heavy metal music, there has to be harmony. But that is just me! The concert ended with an Encore - Rosalita (request sign: "Obama called and wants Rosie") which I think is funny. But I was told that he never played the song that he is famous for – ‘Born in the USA’ which was wretched performing in the Nations’ Capital.