Saying Goodbye to America’s Showplace

Well they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night
you know they blew up his house, too.
-Bruce Springsteen

I hate seeing things I loved as a kid get torn down or paved over.  Green space in Lehigh and Montgomery Counties, PA, for example.  The cornfields behind my old neighborhood mowed down for overvalued McMansions that block the fireworks from three cities on the 4th of July.  More recently, Veteran’s Stadium.  Now, finally, the Spectrum.

You might not know this, but the Spectrum invented the concept of arena as rock show apogee.  Without it, Bruce Springsteen would, quite literally, not have been possible.  Opened in 1967, the Spectrum was the first of its kind, “America’s Showplace.”  The Sixers and Flyers won championships there.  I saw Dr. J play there, and Charles Barkley.  I held a Hulk Rules sign and swore the Red and Yellow pointed right at me from the ring in post-win celebration.  I saw Shawn Michaels roll Marty Janetty over while the seeds of their inevitable feud were being sewn.

Bruce Springsteen and hundreds (thousands?) of others got their first big-venue gigs at the Spectrum, due in part to Philadelphia’s legendary support of rock radio and working-class talent.  Sure, there were old-time concert halls and places like Madison Square Garden, but the Spectrum was the first indoor sports facility to have been specifically built with popular music shows also in mind. It was the first premier arena of the rock era.  As such, it was the place to be seen and heard, and like Esther Smith would say, it was right here in my own back yard.

Last night, they finished tearing the last old concrete guts and bones from this historic place.  On October 20, 2009, I was lucky enough to be on hand for Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band’s last-ever Spectrum show.  In case you don’t know, Bruce is a Philly favorite, an adopted son from just across the river, and he and Billy Joel had their own banners in the rafters of the Spectrum for their record-setting streaks of consecutive sellout shows (still counting.  The banners have been in the CoreState/First Union/Wachovia/Wells-Fargo Center for years, but Bruce’s was moved back for his last stand at the Showplace.)

The 10/20 show was historic by default: the last rock arena, the last rock star, the last time in Philly.  The last time in the place where modern concert-going and giving started, the last time in the place where The Boss cut his teeth.  Sitting in the Spectrum, you’re right down the street from all other kinds of American history.  Throw in the themes of the Born In The USA album, which was played in its entirety, and you’ve got yourself a certain kind of seminar.  In the context of the financial crisis, the wars, the Revolution, the loss of dear things, the loss of dear people, the loss of whole places, it was powerful to feel so obviously American and so absolutely not ironic.  When the band opened with “The Price You Pay,” which they hadn’t been played live since 1981, the tone was set:  recognition, celebration, sincerity, thanks.  “Wrecking Ball,” a paean to the lost shrines of our youth, was exuberant even in its decidedly antifatalist fatalism:

Now when all this steel and these stories, they drift away to rust
And all our youth and beauty, it’s been given to the dust
And your game has been decided, and you’re burning the clock down
And all our little victories and glories, have turned into parking lots
When your best hopes and desires, are scattered through the wind
And hard times come, hard times go
Hard times come, hard times go
And hard times come, hard times go
Hard times come, hard times go
Hard times come, hard times go
Yeah just to come again

Bring on your wrecking ball
Bring on your wrecking ball
Come on and take your best shot, let me see what you’ve got
Bring on your wrecking ball
Bring on your wrecking ball (bring on your wrecking ball)
Bring on your wrecking ball (bring on your wrecking ball)
Take your best shot, let me see what you’ve got, bring on your wrecking ball

That this set would be a once-in-a-lifetime rock and roll moment was never really a question, but there are all kinds of emotional intangibles going on in settings like this.  It wasn’t just Bruce’s last show at the Spectrum.  It wasn’t just the last time the Spectrum would welcome Bruce or any of us home.  It wasn’t just Clarence Clemmons’ last time ever in Philly as part of E-Street (be healthy, Big Man), and it wasn’t just the ghosts of 42 years piled to the ceiling.  It was all of these things, but also the kind of joy that comes from impossible defiance and being in the company of thousands of strangers celebrating something immediately collective. That E-Street, the tightest band to ever grace the Earth, and Bruce, the greatest figure not named Elvis, were the evening’s spiritual directors meant the farewell ritual would be orchestrated perfectly.  That these fans are passionate and savvy, that these songs are about them, meant something else entirely.  This was rock and roll church in a very sacred sense. Afterward I texted one word and one word only: transcendent.  There were even random acts of kindness. When Joe Torre and Donnie Baseball casually assumed regular-guy seats in the middle of the Phillies/Dodgers NLDS, Philly fans actually greeted them with warm applause and good-hearted jibes.  Call that appreciation for a respected baseball man (Philadelphia knows its baseball and its baseball manners. Remember when we booed Brett Meyers for walking Griffey when Griffey was sitting at #599?), call it Brotherly Love.  I call it everyone being in on what the night was all about.  Grown men cried.  Children laughed. Bruce slow-danced with his 90-year old mom.  Quite simply, it was perfect.

Below are two videos from the night of the show.  The first is a short clip of “The Price You Pay” taken on my camera phone.  The second (not by me) is “Higher and Higher.” Given the angle of the later shot, it’s quite possible that two of the smiling, transfigured faces behind Bruce belong to me and my #1 Bromance respectively.  Yep, I got to go to the best rock show ever with my best friend, and he’s also the one who orchestrated the logistics and made the whole thing happen.  Seeing the concert of a lifetime with my life-long partner-in-crime, concert-going, and Meg Ryan movies was really the only way to do it.  What?  We also go see all the Apatow movies.  Hmmm? You don’t remember how cute Meg Ryan was in 90s?  So what if I cried when she died in City of Angels?  You were right, Johnny Rzeznik, the world won’t understand.  To Jonny my BFF, thanks again, brother. You’re the Nils Lofgren to my Steven Van Zandt.  The Nic to my Cage.  The Conan to my Andy Richter.  The David Spade to my Chris Farley.  The Ramon to my Vic.

There are lots of videos from 10/20 all over the web, but these two are significant to me:

Goodnight, friend.  America just lost of piece of itself. Thanks for the memories.