The Time I Almost Met Bruce Springsteen

In 1985 I was living in Mammoth Lakes, California.  Bruce Springsteen, at the time, probably my favorite musician, was touring and we managed to get tickets to one of his concerts at the LA coliseum.

Our concert was September 30, 1985.  A few days before this I was talking to a co-worker, Suzanne, and mentioned our trip down to LA and my excitement about the coming concert.

“Oh,” she said, “I’m not a big fan of his, but he just married my college roommate.”

That was kind of interesting. I knew that Springsteen had married an actress that spring.  I had seen her, Julianne Phillips, in a TV movie called Summer Fantasy, about a girl who gets a lifeguard job -- sort of “Baywatch Lite.”

A couple of days later, Suzanne stopped by my house.  “I talked to Jules (Julianne) last night.  They’re having a get together after the concert and they want me to come by.  She said I could bring some friends if I want.  Would you like to go?”

It took me a few seconds to make the connection.  Was she inviting us to a party with The Boss?

“Yeah,” Suzanne said.  “He’ll be there.  Jules wants me to meet him.  There is one problem though.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, I’m not sure I can go.  I’m flying to Hawaii the next morning and if I can’t get everything ready in time I’m going to have to skip it.”

This was well before cellphones, so we made arrangements for Suzanne to call the home of our mutual friend Jim (we were staying at the Canoga Park home of Jim's parents’).

It was a great concert.  So much energy and I do love his music and loved it even more at that point in my life.  Apparently, Springsteen thought it was a good concert too.  In 1986 he released a collection of songs from concerts called Live/1975–85.   There are 40 songs on the album and eight of them are from the night we saw him.

Well, as you can guess, Suzanne wasn’t able to go.  So I never met The Boss.  However, the next night I did met someone interesting.  Click here for that story.