Being offline sucks... but it's also kind of nice
While I was gone the Live in Dublin DVD was of course released. Since I was offline, I didn't have the same sense of what the general expectations were among fans than is usually the case with a new release. That was kind of refreshing, I must admit. My view wasn't influenced by anything. It reminded me of the old days before the internet... heck, even before I started to subscribe to Backstreets magazine around 1990. Back then I had no idea there were fans out there who thought that anything Bruce had done was less than ingenious. To me, every single note he played, every song, every obscure performance was almost godly. And if I didn't think so right away, I figured there was something wrong with me, and if I just listened to the song a few more times, the brilliance would eventually hit me. That's what happened many times. That's how I got to love "Saint in the City", "Kitty's Back" and a bunch of other of those weird early songs that are considered classics by most. I kept listening. The same rule is to some extent still valid to me today. I do have a more realistic view on Bruce and his abilities and there are definitely things in his canon that is less than brilliant. A few things are almost embarrassing. I'm sure even Bruce would admit that. But a lot of the time songs that at first don't appeal to me suddenly open up and become favorites. "Countin' on a Miracle" comes to mind.
Since reading a comment in Backstreets that referred to my first show (to me a life-changing, mindblowing experience that was perfect from the first to the last note) as "rushed" I've had certain difficulties accepting that fans can be downright critical of Bruce. I even wrote a letter to the editor slamming those who dared dismiss anything he'd done. I've since gotten used to it, of course. I've had to. Running a Springsteen discussion forum kind of forces you to live with it. But it will probably always rub me the wrong way.
That's why it was nice to sit down and watch the Dublin DVD with no pre-conceived notion of what one ought to think of it if one wanted to be in line with the rest of the fan community. Needless to say I loved it to bits. So do a lot of others, I later found out. And others thought it sucked and could hardly watch it all the way to the end. And still others won't even buy it. Who cares? While knowing and communicating with other fans is pretty essential to the whole fan experience, in the end you're still in it on your own terms and for your own sake and you shouldn't have to be ashamed of liking anything with Bruce's name on it. If Human Touch is your favorite album and "Real Man" makes you want to get up and dance, more power to you. I happen to like both of them quite a bit myself :-).