It Ain't Over Til the Fat Guy Frolics

I suspended LOCKDOWN for a night to see my third Springsteen concert in 18 months yesterday. As expected, he did not disappoint.

Couple of notes. As you can see from the pre-show setlist, he was set to play "Jungleland," the best song in the history of songs. Instead, he called an audible and played "Radio Nowhere," a pretty good song that is still a woefully inadequate replacement.

But that's my only quibble. "Outlaw Pete," as I foresaw, is phenomenal as a live song. It builds and builds and builds and has enough pauses in just the right places to fire up the crowd. Bruce even brings out a prop and wears a cowboy hat on stage. I can't wait for "Queen of the Supermarket" so he can bring out a supermarket cart on-stage.

They have Max Weinberg's son, Jay, playing drums on a couple of songs as practice for when the band tours Europe and Max is helping Conan O'Brien launch the new Tonight Show. Kid is 19 and plays drums better than his old man. And he plays them hard. I mean, he was killing those drums.

"Rosalita" was amazing, as always. The depression trilogy mid-show of "Seeds," "Johnny 99," and "The Ghost of Tom Joad" is spectacular, including Nils on "Tom Joad" who just shreds the guitar like no one you've ever seen.

The highlight of the night, though, has to be this one guy down on the floor. He's maybe 280 pounds, just this huge fat guy. And, when the band starts playing "Rosalita," he goes crazy. Goes insane. Starts cheering, jumping up and down. He takes off his track jacket and starts waving it over his head. Then he starts running in circles. Then he starts jumping and skipping and hopping and dancing. I've never seen someone frolic, but that's what this huge dude is doing. Just pure joy. Someone that size should really refrain from doing such physical activity, but, if he goes, at least he goes happy.

Rock on, fat guy. Rock on.

Update: Of course Marc took a picture of the fat guy. It's fairly blurry, because he used an iPhone and the wizards who live inside it don't zoom. But the fat guy is the one in the middle in the blue shirt who looks like he could eat everyone around him and then ask for seconds. And then dance all night.