Brush With the Boss

From Tampa, Florida

So there I am, hustling down a hallway at the Tampa Convention Center looking for the room where they are about to hold a press conference. Ahead of me is a security checkpoint and I can already see the frown on the face of the man guarding the entry point.

Just then, I hear a women’s voice off my right ear. “Sir, sir, could you take a picture for us?” she asked.

So I stop, take her camera, turn and take a picture of her standing with Bruce Springsteen.

The Boss was there, a few feet away. For more than the last 30 years, I’ve seen him in concert, some three dozen times and I’ve probably gotten no closer than maybe 75, 100 feet from him.

Now, here was the Boss, forcing a smile with some woman he just ran into and I don’t know if she’s more excited, or I am.

I snap the picture, hand over the camera and Springsteen looks at me and says “Thanks Brother.” Then he’s off down the hallway, headed for the Super Bowl Half-time Show Press Conference.

OK, now I’ve done about 25 of these Super Bowls over the years. Seen and met a lot of football superstars. Can’t remember 99 percent of those, but I will remember for a very long time my brush with the Boss.

Some observations:

• He’s a lot smaller than I ever imagined, maybe 5-10 or so. I always thought him much taller. His music is certainly bigger.
• His entourage was an NFL public relations type and one security guard. As posse go in the NFL, Springsteen would never make it.
• The press conference with the Boss and the entire E-Street Band drew the biggest crowd of the week and certainly the biggest I’ve seen during a Super Bowl week since Paul McCarthy was the half-time performer. There were men and women in their 50s who were positively giddy with excitement.
• The Boss knows music, but he doesn’t know jack about football and admits as such.
• The half-time show will be 12 minutes, which won’t begin to deliver the Springsteen Experience to those who have never seen it before.
• Thursday’s press conference was the first one Springsteen has done since 1987 before a benefit performance for Amnesty International.
• Springsteen said performing at the Super Bowl will be a piece of cake after performing at Inaugural weekend on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, with Mr. Lincoln looking over his shoulder.
• Las Vegas sports books are taking wagers on the play list for the performance.

What can those watching at Raymond James Stadium and at home expect from this performance?

“We want it to be a 12-minute party,” Springsteen said. “The idea of the show is, you are going to the Meadowlands, and you get lost on the way. You are watching your clock, ‘Damn, the show is starting right now.’ You stop at a bar to get some directions, and the bar gets held up while you are there. So that takes another 45 minutes to get out of there.

“You come back, and you miss your exit on the turnpike, and you are driving to get back around. And so you make it into the stadium 2 hours and 48 minutes into the show — that’s what you are going to see: the last 12 minutes.”