Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band + The Braves = Best Weekend Ever

            Last weekend was just about the best weekend ever.  Saturday I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and then Sunday I went to my first Braves game of the year.  

            Bruce Springsteen is (and has always been) my absolute favorite musician.  Case in point:


Me in my first Bruce shirt (and Auburn shorts)

            Saturday I went to my tenth show (which I know is a drop in the bucket compared to the legions of fans who have seen him hundreds of times).  Unfortunately during the last two tours he came to Atlanta before April 15th, and I worked in public accounting.  Hopefully I won't miss another one.  We did not have great seats.  Well, the seats were okay; our circumstances were just bad.  The guy in front of me was the broadest guy there and the two in front him were probably the tallest.  We could not see anything; but the music was good.  Scratch that.  The music was incredible!  Here is the setlist:

Clampdown (The Clash cover)
Adam Raised a Cain
The Ties That Bind
Jackson Cage
She's The One - opened with the first couple of lines of Not Fade Away (Buddy Holly cover)
Independence Day (tour premiere, piano solo)
High Hopes
Just Like Fire Would
Tougher Than the Rest (sign request)
Cadillac Ranch
Trapped (sign request)
Point Blank
Heaven's Wall
Seeds
Death to My Hometown
Wrecking Ball
Shackled and Drawn
The Ghost of Tom Joad
The Rising
Badlands

Encore:
Drive All Night (tour premiere)
Born to Run
Ramrod
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Shout
Highway to Hell (AC/DC cover)

            This was only the second show that included Clampdown.  It sounded great and has been played in both shows since.  After Adam Raised a Cain, Bruce said, "I'm in a River kind of mood."  He proceeded to play seven songs from The River over the course of the show, including two tour premieres.  It was a night of firsts for me.  I would have to check my records (yes I keep copies of setlists from the shows I've seen and refer to them as "records"), but I'm pretty sure this was the first time I have seen Jackson Cage, Independence Day, Tougher Than the Rest, Seeds, Point Blank and Drive All Night; and of course all of the covers he played and anything from the last two albums.  It was so awesome!  I hope he comes back around soon. 

           The next day we saw the Braves take on the Reds.  It was Julio Teheran against Johnny Cueto.  Their ace against our ace (arguably).  I expected to see a low scoring pitchers duel.  The Braves won 1-0 in the tenth.  The score can't get much lower than that.  It was a good game.  Plus we got to see our first manager's challenge in person.  In the bottom of the first Johnny Cueto tried to pick off B.J. Upton on first.  Upton was called safe.  Bryan Price, the Red's manager, came out to challenge.  The replay on the jumbotron showed that Upton was out.  It would have been the third out.  The Braves fans were disappointed, but knew the call would be reversed and the Reds fans cheered.  (There were a lot of Reds fans there by the way.)  But then, after discussing with the replay officials in New York, the umpires came out and said that the play stands.  The Braves fans were in disbelief and the Reds fans were livid.  There were two right behind us that repeatedly declared that the call was horse fertilizer (how do you like my Vin Scully-esc paraphrasing?).  Then Bryan Price came back out to argue and was ejected. 

            The next nine innings were just business as usual.  In the top of the tenth I realized that the pitcher's spot was coming up for the Braves in the bottom of the tenth.  I just knew Evan Gattis would pinch hit, hit a homerun and that would be it.  Evan Gattis did in fact pinch hit, but struck out, for the second out.  Then Jason Heyward singled, B.J. Upton singled and then Freddie Freeman singled; scoring Jason Heyward.  It was a good thing the game ended then because it was about to rain.  The grounds crew was getting the tarp ready before the game was even over.  Even though the game ended before the rain came, we were not left with enough time to get to the car without getting completely soaked.  In hindsight, we should have looked at the radar and hung out in the concourse area for a while because it probably only rained for twenty or thirty minutes.  But we were out in it when it started pouring and got to ride all the way home soaking wet.  Oh well, I guess the entire weekend couldn't be perfect.