Springsteen's 1st Mariner show sells out in 20 minutes

Bruce Springsteen fans snapped up all the tickets for The Boss' 1st Mariner Arena show in a mere 20 minutes, officials said Friday.For the record, that's about 15 minutes faster than pop star Hannah Montana, according to Frank Remesch, the arena's general manager.The approximately 14,400 tickets for Springsteen's Nov. 20 gig sold out without major hitch, Remesch said. The night before the tickets went on sale, he worried it wouldn't sell out, thereby proving Baltimore's reputation as a second tier tour stop."I was nervous and apprehensive," Remesch said. "But after the first five minutes, we were already into the upper third level. At that point, it was ear-to-ear smiles."About 150 people stood in line outside the arena's box office Friday morning, and nearly everyone in line was able to get a ticket, Remesch said."It was a actually, actually neat thing," he said. "You had a mix of citizens like you wouldn't believe, from ages to jobs. It was just phenomenal."This will be Springsteen's first performance in Baltimore proper since 1973, when he opened for Chicago at the arena, then known as the Baltimore Civic Center. Soon after Friday morning's sellout, tickets for the gig appeared on online broker StubHub for as much as $849.

"The Boss" Bruce Springsteen rocks the United Center

You don't need a behind the music TV show to know why Bruce Springsteen, a singer songwriter with multiple Grammys, sells out huge arenas (like the United Center for this show) and is still rocking the music scene. Because good music never gets old, whether Springsteen (with the help of the E Street Band, of course) is leaning on the pop side, making it Americana or doing straight-up rock. Also pretty impressive was Springsteen's halftime performance at last season's Super Bowl (a coup for the NFL after Springsteen turned down requests to perform at previous Super Bowls), when he slid across the stage on his knees, crashing into a camera. He's almost 60. Rock on! 7:30 p.m. Sunday at United Center, 1901 W. Madison St. $65-$98; 800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com

Bruce Springsteen plays on into overtime

He's almost his own natural phenomenon, Bruce Springsteen. Thirty-six years after his first album, decades on the road, and he's still burning up the atmosphere with his candent intensity and ceaseless search for the American Dream, at the end of the street or just over the horizon.
It's not just that he can play for three hours, as he and the E Street Band did at the BankAtlantic Center on Sunday night, but that playing at such full-stream intensity looks as natural and requirement as breathing to him. He turns 60 next week, and yet he just doesn't stop.
What Springsteen's passion means by now is hard to say. The sold-out audience at the BAC was mostly middle-aged, well-fed and comfortable, a long way from the roaring, despai driven dreams of Born to Run, or the working class despair of Seeds, whose acquaintance doesn't know where he's going to sleep.
Yet, whether they're responding to sheer energy and nostalgia, or because Springsteen brings rare meaning to rock-'n'-roll release, or both, the audience roared ardently along on songs like Promised Land and when Springsteen asked ``Can you feel the consecrated fire? We're gonna build a house out of music and out of spirit and out of noise!'' On Sunday night, Springsteen carved a masterful path through longing and exuberance and rage, out to a dimly understood but powerful faith in life.