I'm sitting with the savages in Section 205. The woman behind me keeps knocking me in the head as she tries to plant her foot on my shoulder and clamber onto the back of my seat for a better view.
There goes her beer, down my wife's suede coat.
"Yoooo-woooo!" the two Springsteen fans to my left shriek, and it would drown out the gorgeous trumpet, bass, and piano rendition of "Meeting Across the River."
Except that back here, 14 rows off the Spectrum floor, I'm barely hearing it anyway.
Surprisingly, only the highs are sharp. I've paid $100 a ticket and, sonically speaking, I'm waist deep in the Big Muddy.
Why do I keep doing this? Didn't I learn my lesson in 2003 at the Linc, when we sat so high up in the brand-new stadium that we couldn't tell Springsteen's species, let alone identify his songs?
Or how about in 1992, during the Lucky Town/Human Touch tour when he'd shed the E Street Band for those younger, hipper L.A. musicians, and it was like running into your dad at a club and seeing him dance with a woman who was not your mom?
But I go. I go because I believe, because years ago Bruce Springsteen put on some of the most wondrous shows of my youth, and I keep trying to rekindle that flame. I go because I keep hoping to see what I saw that made me feel so alive.
For his last shows at the Spectrum he'd be playing whole albums. That was the draw this time. Who has the occasion to hear whole albums these playlist days, let alone hear them performed?
Tuesday's showcasing of Born in the U.S.A. would mark his 36th concert in the decrepit old warhorse. I needed to bear witness, just as The Inquirer chronicled his debut in the hall, in 1973, when he opened for Chicago.
(The paper sent its pipe-smoking classical writer, Samuel L. Singer, who complained about the noise and unintelligible lyrics, though he liked the marimba break in "Spirit in the Night.")
I was late to the Boss' party. Living in the Midwest, I picked up on Springsteen in 1975 after the release of his second record, The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, and didn't see one of his legendary marathon shows until The River tour in 1980, even though I owned a bunch on bootlegs.
Haven't missed a tour since. Each time he comes to town I ask if we should try to get tickets and my wife says of course, and we go looking for regeneration.
I asked Dr. Dennis Charney, a Springsteen fan who is dean of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, why we keep turning out.
