Why I wish I hadn't done Bruce in Brisbane

I've reached a certain point now, where at this very moment, I simply wish I had not attended the Brisbane concert at all. Would I be jealous of those who had? Probably yes, especially as almost all the people I know raved about it. However the concert they experienced, was not the same one I attended. For me, the Brisbane concert was the one that quite simply, went wrong. It summed up all that was crappy and shit on the tour of Australia, and did nothing at all to uplift me as every other Springsteen concert has done. 

My reasons why are:

1. Poor queue preparation / outcomes / moods
I really don't think I have the mindset required to enjoy queuing. I hate waiting for one thing. I also hate wasting time, and tension. Queues are filled with all of that and more.  But the Brisbane queue was especially crap, as one of my friends arrived first, then told other people, then they said 'just go home till tomorrow' and then the 2nd group of people turned up, apparently took over number 1&2 spot from 2 other people and then eventually because I was parked in my car with nothing else to do for the afternoon I ended up getting number 9 & 10 spot with my daughter. This soon turned into 7 & 8 when two people dropped out. This should have made us happy, but because of the tension (I assume from the above confusion between everyone with a higher number than us) it just made me uncomfortable. I was alone with my girl with a very good number but with no immediate prospect of being near any friendly faces who would assist me in ensuring my girl's safety in the pit.  I didn't really want to have such low numbers with her, without also having along another adult beside us who was as committed to safety as I was.  This tension stayed with me for the 3 days of queuing. 

2. My beautiful daughter. 
Who convinced me to do just one more show.  I do not regret taking her, not a bit, but there were many moments when I questioned my decisions & hers.  We had a pact that because she was going to be at the front, no sooking or getting tired (she had managed 2 concerts already in fine form so I didn't foresee how this could happen!) What I didn't think ahead to was what I would do if she couldn't keep her side of the bargain (nobody is perfect!) I should have had a plan B!!!! So what went wrong?  Quite a bit. Because we now had tour shirts post-Sydney, and the ladies in the Brisvegas Bruce house were dressing up, she wanted to join into that fun. Great, except that her previous concert attire was far more suited to long hours standing in a sweat box! She went from very cool loose summer clothes to leggings and a hot Born in the USA T-Shirt in the hope of getting onstage for Sunny Day, the song Bruce always sings with a child from the audience. We also ended up in a group of people who did not approve of her presence in the audience, and were not afraid to say so. We were blessed by one lovely lady who stood her ground behind my daughter and protected her from the worst shoving crowd I've experienced at Springsteen (another thing that went wrong with having brought her along to this particular concert) But there's more. The heat. It was worse than Adelaide, which was bad enough that a woman fainted with heatstroke beside us. So much hotter. And my 9 year old was wearing her hot leggings and t-shirt. So she really wasn't having fun. And it showed to everyone that she was melting, although I was slow to catch on, and only realised towards the end of the encores that she really was feeling the heat, and not just hating the music.  Which is the final disaster in her experience (well almost). So the Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle did not appeal to her. She wanted the Rock n Roll Bruce show. Hunter Valley 1 would have been right up her alleyway. Brisbane was not. How much of this was affected by the loud shouting directly at her that "she shouldn't even be here anyway" during the opening song I don't know.

I feel better for having vented. There are other, small things that upset me about Brisbane. Some not so small. Despite all this negative writing, I am from this point on going to always focus on the positives I can take out of the experience of the show. These were:

1. Seeing my friend's eyes light up at hearing the sound check played, and not long later at hearing her favourite song "Does this Bus Stop at 82nd Street?"

2. Seeing a lovely young woman in happy tears on her Birthday after meeting Bruce and speaking with him after the concert. 

3. Seeing Gary Tallent with a Tuba  (that's a poor picture of it there! But so funny :)




















4. Remembering all the good times I'd had through the whole tour, and the people who made the experience so special. 

And now I'm done. I can look back on this and laugh, as Garfield has said in cartoons past about terrible mishaps.  

This entire post was inspired by reading 7 Ways to Let go of Insults from an A*Hole