Bruce Springsteen is back and so are his fans who congregated in the sun outside the RDS for the first of his three sold-out Irish concerts.
Springsteen has played Ireland 28 times at this stage, but it has been 2016 since his last concert. That’s an eternity for many of his fans and there was the not inconsiderable matter of the Covid-19 pandemic in between.
Fans keep coming because who knows when will be the last time Springsteen might play Ireland. He was already passed the stage of retirement for most mortals when he played in 2016. Now he is an ageless 73.
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Many of his fans have grown up with him and they are growing older with him too. A certain competitiveness entails whenever they gather together. There is no superfan like a Bruce Springsteen superfan. One was overheard saying in the queue that he had taken his whole family to Springsteen 13 times in one year. “That’s why I’m broke.”
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Maeve Dove has seen him every time he has played Ireland, her friend Sheila Burton can add concerts in New York and Australia as well. “I just love everything about him. He has never lost it and we change along with it,” said Ms Dove “We even camped out and we snuck into Mount Juliet (where he was staying in Co Kilkenny) to see him.”
Ms Burton first saw him in Slane in 1985. “I missed the bus home and ended up in a cell for the night because there were no buses back to Wexford. I was 18.”
Touts were trying to buy tickets which is always a good sign that a gig is really sold out. There was a steady trade in American bandanas and flags. Linda Doran and her husband James, who both wore bandanas, are such superfans that they named their Golden Labrador Bruce after him. The dog is 10, about the same age in dog years as Springsteen is in human years. “He (the dog) looks as good as him too,” said Linda.
Brother and sister Callum and Molly O’Flaherty were both at the top of the queue for the pit. Callum came from Namibia for the concerts.
They inherited their love of the Boss from their father Michael who has seen him 150 times. “Most of our family holidays revolved around where Bruce was doing a tour,” Callum said. “If Bruce was touring in the US, we went to the US on holiday.”
“Bruce is our king,” said Molly not a certain King Charles III. She has seen him “thirty-odd times. I sang with Bruce in Rome when I was 11-years-old. I got brought up on stage to sing Waiting on a Sunny Day. In 2009, I was the kid in Rome. I have been a fan all my life really.”
Louise O’Connor from Kerry has a picture of her later mother in her jacket pocket which she is taking to the RDS. Her mother Abina died in 2010. “She was a massive fan. She had all the records. She grew up with Bruce Springsteen. He was everywhere in our house.”
Springsteen plays Saturday and Tuesday night at the RDS. All three concerts are sold out.
