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Published: October 3rd 2009
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Wednesday September 30th 2009
If you have been a regular reader of the blog over the past week and a half or so then you have probably been thinking that there has been an awful lot of ‘Nic’ activities and that Kay has not maybe had the most romantic Honeymoon. Well rest assured, that was changed today or at least this morning with something that I had planned long before we got to New York. I had a surprise in store for Kay and had not told her about it, though anyone who knows Kay will realise that she’s not the best for surprises and furthermore the most gracious if she doesn’t like what the actual surprise is! We headed up through central park towards Strawberry fields and arrived in the upper West side of Manhattan. This is home to many of the rich and famous and so most of those walking around were of the yummy mummy variety or were the au pair in charge of Damien for the morning.
Now anyone who knows anything about the ‘Sex and the City’ TV Series will know (I’m a massive fan by the way - not!!) the four ladies love
hanging out and eating cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery . So being the ever romantic and listening to my wife’s ramblings about her desire to visit said bakery ,I got in touch with the manager and arranged for them to make a set of cupcakes to commemorate our marriage and our honeymoon itself. After much deliberation via email we settled on six cupcakes, with four of them decorated in the turquoise blue that the bridesmaids wore on the wedding day, along with icing saying ‘Mr and Mrs Bennett’ & ‘New York 2009’ on them. I’m pleased to report that the sentimental side won Kay over and she was delighted with all the fuss and attention. However before you think that big Nic has gone all soft, then do bare thought to the fact that I still won from this - after all there was cake to be eaten and later in the evening I was going to fulfil a lifetime ambition in seeing Bruce Springsteen live!
From uptown Manhattan we walked around for a little while, grabbing a hot dog for some lunch before making the short walk up to Penn Station, where we caught the train down to place
called Secaucus Junction and from there we caught a connecting New Jersey train taking us down the Meadowlands complex which is the home to both the New York Giants and New York Jets American football teams. We got off the train and made the short walk around the stadium - just in time to hear Bruce Springsteen finish the early evening sound check and in time to pick up our tickets from the Box Office. We had a brief look around and were fortunate that the weather was still very pleasant and the sky clear and in the visible distance we could see the New York skyline, despite being 20 miles away in a completely different state.
What makes this set of concerts so special is that they are the last at Giants Stadium which is being torn down to make way for car parking next to the new mightily impressive stadium that is ready to take over. The stadium itself holds over 70,000 but for a venue of this nature it did feel quite intimate with every seat allowing a good view of the stage.
We picked up some food, grabbed our seats and sat in the
bitter New Jersey cold for ‘The Boss’ and his E-Street band to make their way out on stage and by 8.05pm they had entered the stage with no warm-up band - just Bruce and his gang playing their songs. Another two reasons why this concert was so special is that New Jersey is Springsteen’s home area and their was a real sense of a home-town gig in the air in addition to the fact the band had decided to play the Classic ‘Born to Run’ album in its entirety alongside other tracks. Bruce stepped forward, picking up his renowned telecaster guitar and launched into a new song remembering the stadium itself - a venue that he has performed at countless times previously. From here, the band went through such classics as Glory Days, Thunder Road and Badlands with Bruce really stealing the show and getting everyone in the crowd on their feet cheering, clapping and dancing. Over the past few years we have both been fortunate enough to see such artists as The Who, The Rolling Stones and Bon Jovi, however Bruce topped all of them and it is clear to see why Springsteen is still so respected at the
age of 60!! That said, he didn’t quite top the exploits of AC/DC who I watched earlier this year at the O2 in London though what I believe makes Springsteen so appealing is that he has an air of quality about him that makes every guy want to be with him or a mate of his, whilst every woman adores his chiselled American boy looks.
The show itself was basic, no fancy or elaborate lights or gimmicky stage set-ups - this was about a group of musicians’ doing what they did best and the band carried on playing and playing and playing. Such were the good times and enjoyable nature that the band were having, they carried on playing for nearly three and a half hours barely taking a break in between songs but enough that allowed Springsteen to form a relationship with his audience. Towards the finale and climax of the set list, Springsteen declared to the crowd that w as an audience had witnessed "the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, earth-quaking, nerve-breaking, Viagra-taking, history-making, legendary … E-STREET BAND" before then launching into crowd favourite and pleaser ‘Dancing in the Dark’. If you ever get the opportunity then go
and see Bruce and his E-Street band, you are promised an absolutely amazing show and will bare witness to an immense set of musicians who really aren’t done justice on a CD or radio station.
We headed out of the stadium with a little concern that the trains may have stopped seeing as it was already 11.30pm, but thankfully they had not and we boarded the first train that took us all the way back into central Manhattan. We arrived back in at around 12.15am and decided that we would walk the 20 blocks back to our hotel, allowing us to pass through Time Square at 1am to really see the bright lights in a more relaxed and friendly atmosphere and managed to get some fantastic pictures before returning to our hotel absolutely shattered where we headed straight to bed knowing on Thursday we would be climbing nearly 400 steps to the top of the Statue of Liberty!
Nic and Kay xx
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