So, instead, what happened was I pulled every string possible with an end result of me waiting in the freezing cold for two hours to watch Feist perform a cover of “State Trooper.” (That’s no dig at Feist, it was a pretty awesome cover of “State Trooper.”) But, alas, later at the Sundance premiere for Blinded by the Light, Gurinder Chadha announced Bruce wouldn’t be there because he wanted the movie to speak for itself, or whatever, so that was that. Now, in retrospect, from the sources I had, I do believe, at one point, Bruce was planning on doing a surprise show at Sundance, but then it fell apart. So, this past January, I chased those Sundance rumors hard. But, on those rare occasions, the lucky people there will get to basically be transported back in time to the early 1970s, before Born to Run, where they get to see Bruce Springsteen just hanging out in a bar playing guitar.
And most of the time you’re just going to wind up getting a full Joe Grushecky set. Basically, let’s say, oh, Joe Grushecky is playing a gig at The Stone Pony or Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, there’s maybe a five percent chance Bruce shows up to just jam. Now, I’ve seen Bruce roughly 26 (maybe 27, I haven’t counted recently) times but I’ve never caught one of his “secret” or “rumored” shows.
So, of course, when Blinded by the Light premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, there were countless rumors Bruce himself would be making the trip to Park City, Utah. Springsteen pretty much gave this production full access to his catalog – using a Springsteen song in a movie usually costs a pretty penny – and, boy, Blinded by the Light did not skimp on the Springsteen music. So, here’s a little bit of backstory about Bruce Springsteen and this movie: Blinded by the Light, directed by Gurinder Chadha, is based on Sarfraz Manzoor’s book about growing up in a Pakistani family while living in English town of Luton and falling in love with Springsteen’s music. This seemed to be a good time to go to Asbury Park. On Wednesday night, Blinded by the Light – a love letter of a movie about the music of Bruce Springsteen that I first saw back at Sundance and adored – was having its premiere in Asbury Park. (My number of shows attended has ballooned substantially over the last 15 years.) Anyway, somehow, in all this time, I have never been to Asbury Park, New Jersey. I’m sort of partially serious when I claim that back in 2004 I moved to New York City for more access to Springsteen concerts. Look, if there’s one thing I don’t even try to “play it cool” about it’s my unadulterated love for Bruce Springsteen. It’s kind of weird watching Bruce Springsteen watch a movie.