Springsteen Fans From All Over Catch His First Atlantic City Show

By VINCENT JACKSON Staff Writer, (609) 272-7202
The Press of Atlantic City
Published: Monday, November 14, 2005

ATLANTIC CITY-When Bruce Springsteen opened his solo acoustic concert Sunday at Boardwalk Hall with the songs "Born in the U.S.A.," "Devils & Dust" and "Atlantic City" in succession, Maureen O'Malley and the husband-and-wife team of Marina Bovyn and Hans Niemegeers cheered him on boisterously between each tune.

They each found themselves inside the hall under very different circumstances.

O'Malley won tickets through a drawing hours before showtime on Sunday, and Bovyn and Niemegeers traveled from Belgium to attend the concert.

Bovyn, Niemegeers, O'Malley and thousands of others witnessed only the second headlining performance in the resort by Springsteen, a native of Freehold, Monmouth County. He came to Boardwalk Hall with his famous backing group, the E Street Band, in March 2003. This time, he gave a more intimate concert with only 9,000 of the hall's 13,800 seats put on sale. The 9,000 seats sold out.

Also, he has been treating concerts on this tour as a retrospective of his 32-year recording career. He has been pulling out some songs from his back catalog he never or rarely played live.

O'Malley had only seen Springsteen, 56, live once previously, in 2003 at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. A former member of the U.S. Air Force, O'Malley came to town to celebrate the Veterans Day holiday weekend.

"I've been to no shows on this tour. On the spur of the moment, I decided to come to Atlantic City," O'Malley said.

While O'Malley walked Saturday on the Boardwalk, she saw people wearing cowboy hats and learned about Saturday's Alan Jackson concert at Boardwalk Hall, but she didn't know about the Springsteen show.

O'Malley walked through the lobby of her favorite casino here, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, at 3:30 p.m. and saw a bunch of people standing in line. She decided to enter the line just to find out its purpose. She entered her the contest when told Springsteen tickets were the prizes."I hadn't won anything all weekend," O'Malley said.

When O'Malley's name was read aloud by the lead singer of the B Street Band, a Springsteen tribute group playing in the Plaza's Liquid Bar, her losing streak came to an end. "One guy said I had awesome seats," said O'Malley, who at the bar celebrating her win.

O'Malley already checked out of the Plaza and didn't know whether to stay at the Plaza another night and make the two-hour drive home after the concert, or sleep somewhere else for the night. "I'll just go with the flow," O'Malley said.

Luck helped O'Malley see the show. Bovyn and Niemegeers put a little more effort into making sure they caught the show. They ordered their tickets online through Ticketmaster from their home in Belgium and traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to see the Nov. 8 Philadelphia show at the Wachovia Center and the concert here.

They saw Springsteen for the first time in 1984 and say they have seen him at least 25 times since then. They own each of Springsteen's officially released albums in three versions - European, American and Japanese pressings. The couple traveled to the U.S. to see their sixth and seventh shows of Springsteen's "Devils & Dust" tour after taking in five European concerts in Brussels, Belgium, Amsterdam, Paris, Bologna and Hamburg, Germany.

"I would like to hear 'Atlantic City.' I would like to hear 'Brilliant Disguise'," Bovyn said before she walked into the hall.

Like the Belgian couple, Chuck Wynn of Delaware County, Pa., also bought tickets to the Philadelphia show and the concert here.

A young Springsteen fan at age 25, Wynn has attended about a half dozen Springsteen shows in his life. He saw Springsteen live for the first time on his reunion tour with the E Street Band in 1999 and caught him twice on "The Rising" tour in 2003, once in Philadelphia and once at Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, Bergen County.

Wynn appreciated the more introspective tone of Springsteen's solo acoustic shows. "He played a lot of songs I never heard him play live before. A lot of stuff from 'The River' (an album from 1980). He didn't play 'Born To Run' or 'Thunder Road' or a lot of the stuff we always hear. It was different," Wynn said as he stood outside of the hall on a chilly, windy night in his T-shirt from "The Rising" tour.

Wynn ordered tickets online on the same day for both Philadelphia and here. In Philadelphia, he sat on the floor of the Wachovia Center, but here, he got tickets for the hall's second level.

"I think it's cool that he's playing in the same place that the 'Atlantic City' video was filmed," Wynn said.