I have absolutely no right to be writing about Clarence Clemons - I'm not one of those die-hard E-Street Band fans from way back - I only fell in love with them in 2002 after breaking up with one of those South Shore girls who embodied everything in Bruce's songs. She used to say she had doubts about my character due to the fact I wasn't a Bruce fan. I grew up on the North Shore, where the innocent sentimentality in Bruce's music cannot be understood because people there, as far as I could see growing up, were mainly concerned with money and being assholes. They were way too materially privileged to sense the sweet, nerdy, outcast love in the E-Street Band, so they focused on the driving anthems whose lyrics I don't think they ever listened to. They understood Bruce about as well as Ronald Reagan did. I believe their fan status probably made Bruce scratch his head in wonder. But anyway, I got out of there through a pretty major personal tragedy. More than 15 years later I was sitting on my balcony on Prospect Park West, missing Anita, and started listening to Bruce. I totally fell in love. I started annoying my super hip upstairs neighbors by listening to hours and hours of Bruce and The E-Street Band, and about a month later The Rising tour arrived back at the Meadowlands for a ten night stand. I had to go. Vair, vair, funny, said my friends - you'll be the only gay person in a stadium of 30,000 middle class white people re-living their high school glory days, getting legless and mooing "Bruuuuce!" like a crowd of honky Baptists who go see a gospel choir once every 5 years to prove they can still feel the spirit of God move them through their beer guts.
I bought a ticket through Craigslist from a lawyer in Philadelphia who had bought tickets for his whole family, who had all bailed on him. He was incredulous. This was my first glimpse of the personal, therapeutic nature of the Bruce fandom. We decided where to meet up that Sunday, and I spent the rest of the week trying to convince my Park Slope friends what a huge opportunity they were missing by not going with me. They got endless enjoyment out of this.
So I was going alone, no problem. The only way to get out there by public transportation was by bus, so in the extremely down-to-earth spirit of the Boss, I made my way to Port Authority and got on a bus out to The Meadowlands. It was filled with people going to the show - and like any Bruce fans, they were comparing the pedigree of their fan status (which is tallied up in years of devotion + number of shows seen + an amazing capacity to remember set lists from specific shows). I was feeling pretty gay...
I get there and meet Andrew - middle aged lawyer, clearly a bit surprised to see this small lesbian with a ceasar cut as his Bruce concert mate. I was wearing clogs, if I remember right. Yes sir, I was. We tried to give each other some space, but once the music started he couldn't contain himself and started , as any responsible Bruce fan would do, to ask me what I knew about the band. I said I knew nothing. He stood right next to me, like a coach, and proceeded to explicate the show. He was very serious and sincere, and the only chance I had to laugh and stare as much as I wanted at the astounding spectacle of thousands of white guys DANCING WITH FEELING AND SOMETIMES CRYING A LITTLE BIT was when Andrew went for refreshments. That alone, my friends, that alone, is a reason to give your heart to Bruce and Clarence. They made the impossible happen, and made it piercingly, poignantly, hilarious and they could, apparently, do this anytime they wanted. After suffering the attitudes and bullshit, willful disdain and blunt brains of this slice of the population, I really could not have invented any sweeter revenge than seeing them unmasked in this way.
And that was just what I got from watching the fans :)
Watching Bruce was even better. He is a stunning individual. There is absolutely no one like him - he makes Jon Stewart stutter, and I totally get it. Bruce (and it's never just him, right - it's the whole band) is For Real. And like a lot of great people, he has little to do with his titanic fan base. He's said as much. It's a bit surreal seeing this amazing group of friends who clearly have pierced the veil together, conducting a sort of revival for the spirits of white Americans, who are mostly participants in everything Bruce and the band reject. This became crystal clear once he started writing essays on politics and talking about the war at his shows years later. He gets booed a lot by his devotees.
Anyway the love and beauty radiating off the stage at a Bruce show is absolutely intoxicating. Now two members of the E Street Band have died. I'm listening to "When They Built You, Brother" for the tenth time this morning and having a private wake for Bruce's dear friend and all around fascinating person Clarence Clemons.
That Meadowlands show, the year after 9/11, tapping into the crack in the souls of East Coasters that tragedy had created, lasted 4+ hours and I'll always remember it. I've never seen anyone else light up a stadium like that - Clarence smiling at Bruce was seriously effervescent. If you ever have the chance to see Bruce with any of the various combinations of the band or solo, don't think twice.
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