The Boss in The Eternal City

Bruce made me homesick in Rome and proud to be born in the USA.

Bruce performing at the Circus Maximus this past weekend, after a seven-year hiatus from Italy.

My husband has always said I should thank Bruce Springsteen for his falling in love with America. This past Sunday night at Rome’s Circus Maximus, together with 60,000 other spectators, I finally did.

When it comes to my husband understanding America, Bruce came first. And, then there was me. When we first met, my husband remained speechless, almost insulted, that I didn’t know all the lyrics to Bruce’s songs. As if he knew my national anthem and I didn’t.

When my husband was a young boy learning to play the guitar, Bruce represented the quintessence of America: a badass, suburban drifter, strumming guitar chords either under a beech tree or at a sold-out stadium next to a baseball pitch, riding off on a motorcycle in a denim jacket with a bandana in his back jeans’ pocket, with nowhere to go but with songs to sing, humbly and hoarsely preaching rock n roll music as if it were the word.

Three hours before the concert began. This field quickly became packed with 60,000 of us sardines.

Growing up in Upstate New York, I didn’t get Bruce. What I heard was a guy singing about small town living, and moving around aimlessly without a plan. I wanted more than what a small town in America could offer, and I dreamed of a plan to move away from my homeland.

But my brother always told me I didn’t have a clue when it came to music. That I had to move beyond my melancholic, female indie vocals and sappy movie soundtracks. That I couldn’t be American and not love Bruce. How could I not understand what he saw and heard in him: the raspy voice, the rock n roll jam sessions with the E Street Band, the lyrical ballads, the Jersey boy born cool who gave voice to the working class. A stronger version of Bob Dylan, he would tell me — more raw, more authentic, more accessible, a better performer.

Damn it, both my husband and brother have been saying to me for years, you were born in the USA. You better learn more than the refrain, and cheer for the man who has spent the past fifty years spreading America’s creed of hope, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness.

This past weekend was the first time I’d ever seen Bruce live in concert.

And now, I, hereby, humbly state that I stand corrected.

All these years, I have been wrong about Bruce. As he brought down the Roman skies with his talent, sensuality, and simpatia among hoards of fans of all ages sandwiched between the Palatine and Aventine Hills, I fell in love with him for making me love my country and his music about it. It took my hearing him sing about my homeland in the land which has become my home to recognize the very genius of The Boss.

Note the Italian and American flags on top of Bruce’s stage — a reflection of his own heritage.

All these years and I never listened closely enough — to his poetic lyrics, his musical preaching, his enthusiastic performing. Not until I saw him perform live did I get his swagger, his bad-assness, his rockstar-dom with his feet on the ground and that sly grin that makes any mother nervous next to her daughter but still want to flirt.

As my musical tastebuds have ripened along with my life experiences, I finally get his music. I can now relate to the yearning for the small town, for the passing of time, for the freedom to explore without a map. With age, I’m more nostalgic. And, I believe he is, too.

It was his one-man show on Broadway (now featured on Netflix) with a piano, harmonica and guitar that, recently, won me over. The authenticity, vulnerability and humor with which he tells his story in a theater is enough to make anyone listen in awe. The two songs he sings about his parents — one about his mother’s love for dancing (The Wish), and the other about his own longing for his father’s approval (My Father’s House) — are lyrical love letters that instantly made me respect him first and foremost as a writer. His performance in the Broadway theater is quiet, soft and gentle — the ying to the yang of his stadium concerts. It’s campfire Bruce.

At the concert, as in the theater, he got me with his harmonica. The sound of it turns a big arena into an intimate listening booth. It makes me think of harmonizing duets, fireflies in jam jars, roasting marshmallows, star-gazing, Marlboro Reds, and the smell of crackling kindling on a campground. To hear it played steps from the Colosseum was like uniting cowboys with gladiators. The moment he gave his harmonica away to a young boy perched on his father’s shoulders the entire crowd swooned.

We managed to find a spot right in front of the screen closest to the stage.

Wherever he plays, he possesses an extraordinary energy and leadership in knowing how to work a crowd. At 73, he doesn’t disappoint as a rockstar. As my son kindly pointed out, when Bruce leapt around the stage, he seemed more fit than my husband and me. He played for three hours straight without a break. He may have traded in his Beatle boots for orthopedic sneakers (black kicks with a thick white sole — Nikes?) but he still dresses like the cool kid who always ends up in detention after school — black jeans, brown belt, short-sleeved, black, button-down shirt, small, gold hoop earrings and an army tag silver chain necklace. And that gold wedding band for Patti.

During a particularly heated and energizing musical moment at the concert, he tore open a button of his shirt to reveal his hairless, muscular chest. The Kiss-Cam then zoomed on an elderly woman (probably his age) who, at that very moment, gasped through a huge smile at his aged buff-dom while her glasses fogged up. The crowd screamed for more — some for more music, others for more unsnapped buttons. But out came his Catholic boy upbringing as he buttoned back up his shirt, despite the disappointing sighs of drooling female fans hoping for more.

Several hours before the concert, it had poured rain with thunder claps, leaving the Circus Maximus a mud pit. But it cleared up in time for the concert. We showed up in rain gear, and sloshed around in sloppy sneakers. There were no seats — it was one big field of chaos, where spectators sat either on plastic bags or their jackets along the slopes of the field. There seemed to be just as many foreigners as Italians, with English as the lingua franca, and the atmosphere friendly and high-spirited. Strangers became friends as they gave each other a hand climbing up and down the slippery mud-banks. Local papers reported that among the crowds were actors Woody Harrelson and Chris Rock, and musicians Sting, Maneskin’s Thomas Gaggi, Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason and Metallica’s Lars Ulrich. With hot-dog and beer stands hugging the huge, open field originally built by Romans to accommodate 150,000 spectators for chariot-racing, it felt like a Sunday picnic.

At his concert and among his repertoire, there truly is something for everyone: I see and hear that now. There’s rock n roll, blues, jazz, and slow love songs like those indie vocals I still follow. And there’s humility in every which way he plays. Whether it’s as a one-man-show or backed up by his extraordinary band of music icons from Paul Schaffer on piano, Clarence’s nephew on the sax, and Little Stevie on, well, everything.

Little Stevie!

In the way he raised the decimals to deafen even the seagulls flying overhead or silenced the crowds by holding his forefinger to his lips for a group hush, he reigned from the stage as a Roman emperor might have long ago. In the last hour, we crooned along to Thunder Road, Born in the USA, The Rising, Wrecking Ball, and many of his oldies but goodies. Eventually, he asked the crowd if we wanted to go home. No one did.

The Boss made this Birthday Boy’s day.

He gave us a night of America, of family time together, of perhaps my husband’s most memorable birthday to date. My 16-year-old niece and I cried together as he sang one of his farewell, acoustical lullabies in which he remembered friends and band members he has lost over the years. Would we ever see him on tour again? Was this it? It was too much to think about.

Our commute home.

At 10:30pm, when the concert ended, all 60,000 of us marched like loyal soldiers over the cobblestones from the Circus Maximus past the Arch of Constantine and the Colosseum, through the Roman Forum, and ended up in Piazza Venezia, where we waited endlessly for backed-up busses, clocked over 10,000 steps, and hobbled home, mostly on foot, around midnight. We traipsed through the streets of Rome as if we had just completed a pilgrimage, grateful for our dancing in the dark.

Grazie mille, Bruce, sei un mito.

A family affair. My husband’s sisters share the fandom so we passed it on to our kids, and donned them with over-priced merch!