Bruce Springsteen finally jets into Perth

I've waited a long time for this, nearly 3 decades actually. Bruce Springsteen didn't tour Australia often, until last year that was. When the occasion arises, if you live on the west coast as I do - you can forget about seeing Bruce play live. That was until now, the long wait is over, its been 29 years but Bruce Springsteen will finally play Perth after his first Australian tour hit our shores back in 1985.

Apparently, the deciding factor in Bruce deciding to visit Perth was he learnt five thousand people had to fly to the eastern states to see his concert last year. We were told at the time that he was soooooo close to touring Perth - of course, nobody believed him as we had heard it all before. You could imagine our surprise when a Perth concert was announced, the tickets sold out very quickly, as I was registered for the pre-sale, I was fortunate enough to secure a single ticket, I fared better than others who, despite trying - missed out altogether.

For the majority of people my age, a bulked up Bruce burst on the scene with his Born in the USA album. As a bunch of young punks at high school, we then learnt that Springsteen had been around for some time with the albums Nebraska, The River, Darkness on the Edge of Town and Born to Run. For those of us interested enough, we had the opportunity to build our album collections with Bruce's previous offerings.

Bruce's first Australian tour in 1985 brought a level of excitement not seen in my lifetime, I was too young to have seen the Beatles and Rolling Stones tour Australia in the 60s - the pandemonium generated back then was legendary.

I can remember being on a school camp when Bruce played Sydney, the concert was not telecast live but the cameras were at the arena with live cross and breaking news flashes interrupting normal transmission. We crowded around a single television to watch the news reports learning that Bruce's concerts often went into overtime - as the Sydney show did.

Ronald Reagan was the US president, Bob Hawke was the Australian prime minister, Nelson Mandela still had another 5 years in a South African jail, the Vietnam war had been over for nearly a decade, the Berlin Wall divided West and East Germany and the cold war was still at its height with nuclear catastrophe ever present when Bruce first played Australia all those years ago.

Springsteen has aged another 30 years since his Born in the USA tour first kicked off, he is 65 now and I am hoping that his Friday show is going to be worth the three decade wait - as legendary as his concerts are reputed to be. I went from high school, from just turning 16 to almost 45 before I had the opportunity to see Bruce in Perth - that's a long wait. I had almost given up all hope of seeing The Boss play live - barring a car accident or heart attack, I will be at the Perth Arena Friday night full of energy and enthusiasm.