Fort Lauderdale News from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 132

Fort Lauderdale News, Friday. August 25. 1978 Springsteen Starting His Conquest Of West 68S By Dave Marsh Railing Stone night mixing tapes redorded at his last concert, he is at the pool soaking up the sun by 11 a.m. At 6:30 p.m., Bruce is at KMET-FM to do an on-the-air interview with disc jockey Mary Turner. There are a couple of bottles of champagne, which may be a mistake; Bruce gets loose pretty easily.

And in fact, he is a little sloshed as the interview begins, but Turner plays it perfectly, fishing for stories. She gets at least one winner. One of Bruce Springsteen's most popular early songs is called 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy). That he is spending this Independence Day on the shores of the wrong ocean is an irony that escapes no one, including himself. A.

is not terra incognita, fuit Springsteen does not yet reign here as he does back east, and perhaps the time is auspicious to change that. Although he has been up all 1 A THE COLONEL'S TABLE RESTAURANT GOVERNORS' CLUB 101 E. LAS OLAS Complete DINNER crfc 4P.M.-7P.M. OU MON. THRU SAT.

EXCEPT HOLIDAYS $1.00 REBATE ON COMPLETE DINNERS (SUNDAY ONLY) 'S SPECIAL EXCEPT HOLIDAYS yJ BREAKFAST SPECIAL I (Encepl Sunday Holidays) I "When my folks moved out to California," Bruce begins in response to a question about whether he really knows "a pretty little place in em California-Down San Diego way" as he claims in Rosalita. "My mom decided se my father and I would fight all the time and she decided that we should take a trip together. She decided that we should go to Tijuana (he laughs his hoarse laugh, reserved for the truly absurd.) So we got in the car and drove down there, arguing all the way. "Anyway, we finally got there, and, of course, my old man is the softest-hearted guy in the world. Within IS minutes, some guy has sold him some watch that must've run for all of an hour and a half before it stopped.

And then some guy comes up and says, 'Hey, would you guys like to have your picture taken on a "Well, we looked at each other who could believe this, right? Zebras are in Africa. And so we said, 'Well, if you've got a zebra, we definitely want to have our picture So we give him ten bucks and he takes us around this comer, and he's got. got a damn donkey with stripes painted on its side. And he pulls out these two hats one says Pane ho, one says Cisco I swear and he sits us on the donkey and takes our picture. My mother's still got that picture.

But that is all I knew about Southern California at the time I wrote Rosalita." Bruce is so loose by now that when an ad for Magic Mountain's roller coaster the largest in the world comes on, he discusses great roller coasters he has known, and his desire to see this one. "Ya wanna date?" he asks Turner, in front of who knows how many listeners. She makes the perfect reply: "Only if we sit in the front seat." I drove out to the forum this afternoon with Obie. Obie is 25, and she has been Bruce Springsteen's biggest fan for more than a decade. When he was still just a local star, she waited overnight for tickets to his shows to make certain she'd have perfect DAILY LUNCHEON SPECIALS MON.

THRU. FRI. $25 TWO EGGS (Any SlyWI Of OrC EGG WITH BACON. TomL Colin or Tea. Choict 01 Orange Juwe-Haah Brown Potaloea A M.

-11 WON. tnru SAT. Bruce Springsteen: The Eleventh Commandment is: 'Let It Rock! OPEN DAILY 7 TO 7 IN THE GOVERNORS' CLUB DOWNTOWN FT. LAUDERDALE Ph. 467-8619 IjC ik r.h (1 i A great dinner 9 I I ft 81 should include more than bread and water When you pay for dinner al the Golden Spike it comes with our fabulous SALAD BUFFET, Garlic Toast.

Rolls and Butter and our unequalled DESSERT BUFFET without paying one penny extra And ust think all the OYSTERS on the hall shell and STEAMED CLAMS that you can eat. seats. She is now secretary to Miami Steve Van Zandt, Springsteen's guitarist and manager-producer of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. This means that while Springsteen is on tour, Obie is the de facto manager of the Asbury Jukes. But she's also something more.

She makes some of the jackets and suits Bruce wears onstage. She is also a historian; there are a thousand Asbury Park legends behind her twinkling eyes. More than anything, she is a fan who counts the days between Springsteen shows. Her loyalty is rewarded. Whenever she comes to a show, in any town, the front-row center is reserved for her.

It is partly this that makes Bruce Springsteen so attractive: He is surrounded by real-life characters that form the kind of Utopian community most of us lost when we graduated high school; one of the reasons Springsteen is such a singular performer is that he has never lost touch with this decidedly noncosmopolitan gang. Bruce has never held any other job, apparently because he could not conceive of doing anything else. At age eight, when he first heard Presley, lightning struck, and when he picked up the guitar at 13, another bolt hit him. "Wlien I got the guitar," he told me, "I wasn't getting out of myself. I was already out of myself.

I knew myself, and ,1 did not dig me. I was getting Info myself." By 14, he was in his first band; by 16, he was so goo tliat when he practiced in his manager's garage, neighborhood kids would stand on milk crates at the windows with their noses pressed to the glass, just to hear. Hie only other tilings besides music that ever meant much to him, Springsteen says, were surfing and cars. But nothing even girls ever got in the way of his obsession with his music; there is a certain awe in the way that people who have known him for many years speak of his single-minded devotion to playing. It's as if he always knew his destiny, and while this hasn't mae him cold he is one of the friendliest people I know it has given him considerable distance from everyday relationships.

One does not ever think of Bruce Springsteen married and settled down, raising a family, having kids; that would be too much monkey business. Perhpas the most nervy and nerve-racking antic Springsteen has is his trademark leap into the audience. He looks frail at an extremely wiry and agile five-foot-nine, he is not and one is always worried that his consummate trust in his fans is going to let him down. But night after night he gets away with it. Tonight, security goesn't get the picture and tries to drag the fans off Bruce as he ascends an aisle deep in the loges.

"You guys work here or something?" Springsteen demands. "Get outta here. These guys are my friends." The crowds roars. At the end of every show, before the first encore, Bruce stands tall at the microphone and makers a little speech. "I want to thank all of you for supporting the band for the past three years," he concludes and then plays Born to Run.

I wondered why. "That' what it's about," he said. "Everything counts. Every person, every individual in the crowd counts to me. What I always feci is that I don't like to let myself down.

Whatever the situation, as impossible as it is, I like to try to. .1 don't wanna try to get by." Please Turn To Next Page L0XAHATCHE rM RFPRFiTlflN 1RF1 ftvU? ARSOAT TOURS rnOFCSSIONAL OUOES OYSTERS STEAMED CLAMS ON THE HALF SHELL BOAT MOTOR RENT Ah MERCURY MECHAMC PCNCP00O4 BEVERAOE EXCELLENT DUCK HUNT MO FREE ADMISSION 4 BOAT RAMPS BE SUM 10 BUY 10XAHHCHEE AIRBOAT tlCKUS ONLY I Ml Wetl ol Ml On U7 (lot tot AS MANY AS YOU WISH WITH EACH DINNER LUNCH VISIT THE LATE FR0M Minr Acii An SNACKS 1100AM. MUG CELLAR til 2 a.m. MONDAY-FRIDAY 11 A.M.-2 A.M. 4 P.M.-2 A.M.

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