My incredible mother and son moment thanks to Bruce Springsteen

On Monday night, I drove up to the city with my mom, one of my closest friends and the one and only Judi Franco. After a 2 month wait, it was finally time to see Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band at Madison Square Garden. The show was supposed to take place at the end of January, but it was postponed due to snow. As upset as I was at the time that we wouldn't be there until the end of March, I realized Monday that it was absolutely worth the wait.

Bruce did something special for the crowd that night. I'm not sure if it was due to the the electric atmosphere in the building, if he wanted to make up for the postponement, or perhaps he was just in a good mood, but after performing The River from front to back, he helped create one of the coolest moments my mom and I could have ever experienced.

A few songs into his post-River set, the lights went down and all you could see was Bruce Springsteen and Roy Bittan on piano. Suddenly the opening notes to "Meeting Across The River" could be heard over the sound system and the crowd went wild. The crowd was stunned. Judi Franco was euphoric. By far the rarest of the songs from Born To Run, there was only one song that could follow up "Meeting Across The River," and when that song finally came on, I gave my mom the biggest hug ever.

"Jungleland" follows "Meeting Across The River" to close out Born To Run, and it followed "Meeting Across The River" on Monday night. Aside from when Bruce Springsteen performed Born To Run in its entirety at a handful of shows a few years ago, hearing these two songs back to back is as rare as rare gets. "Jungleland" also happens to be my mom's all-time favorite Bruce Springsteen song. This was our first time hearing it live together and my mom's first time hearing it with Clarence Clemons' nephew Jake performing the iconic saxophone solo. There were tears in both of our eyes as the song started. We were in disbelief. We gave each other tickets to this show for Christmas, and moments like this helped make it one of the best gifts we both could have ever received. And on a night when Bruce and his mom had their own special mother and son moment to boot.

Thank you Bruce!

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