The event itself matters, but the shared experience matters even more. (Photo Credit: a tailgating neighbor)
Hello, my name is Phil and, besides covering Notre Dame football for the past three decades, I’ve seen a lot of great concerts, and I take music pretty seriously.
Recently I’ve found myself reflecting on the role music has played in my life. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that great concerts and great Notre Dame football Saturdays are remarkably similar. Both bring people together. Both create lifelong memories. And years later, what we remember most often has less to do with what happened on the stage or the field than with the people who shared the experience with us.
Like many people my age, I can measure periods of my life by the music that accompanied them.
My first concert was Elton John in 1974. Not a bad way to begin. At the time, I had no idea I was watching one of the biggest stars in the world at the height of his powers. But as the first chords of Funeral for a Friend opened that show on the Notre Dame campus, I knew I was hooked.
A few years later I saw Kiss at Notre Dame. I was close enough to the stage that Gene Simmons managed to drool his trademark stage blood in my direction. Nearly fifty years later, that’s still a pretty good story.
Then came Bruce Springsteen.
In 1978 I sat second row center at Notre Dame in the “ACC” (now Purcell Pavilion) and witnessed what remains the greatest concert experience of my life. It was the Darkness on the Edge of Town tour, 28-year-old Springsteen at his absolute peak, and the E Street Band firing on all cylinders. Nearly five decades later, no one has topped it. But as great as that show was, it wasn’t the most important Springsteen concert of my life.
That came seven years later.
In 1985 I had tickets to see Bruce Springsteen at Soldier Field in Chicago. Through a twist of fate, I ended up selling a ticket to a pretty young lady named Lynda and ended up going to the concert with her.
That concert was our first date.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Over the years there were many more concerts. The original Farm Aid. Neil Young. The Eagles. Bob Seger. ELO. Mellencamp. John Mayer. A dozen Chicago shows. Alice Cooper five times, twice from the second row. Billy Joel in the 1970s, the 1990s, and again just last year. About twenty-five Jimmy Buffett shows, and Zach Bryan along with 80,000 friends in the “House that Rockne” built last year. Backstage visits with Peter Frampton, Cheap Trick, Loverboy, BTO and others.
Along the way I learned something. The best concerts are not always about the music. They’re about the memories attached to the music. Maybe that’s why I’ve always loved both concerts and Notre Dame football. The event itself matters, but the shared experience matters even more.
The older I get, the less interested I am in ranking concerts. Was Springsteen better than Buffett? Was Billy Joel better than Neil Young? Was Alice Cooper more entertaining than Kiss?
Those debates are fun, but they miss the point. What I remember most today are not necessarily the songs that were played, but the people I shared them with.
I remember Labor Day weekend in 2023, the day Jimmy Buffett passed away. That same day, in Notre Dame Stadium, Sam Hartman and Audric Estime took care of Tennessee State, and as members of the media gathered on the Notre Dame sideline in the final minutes of the game, the stadium sound system played Margaritaville. A spontaneous and dance and sing along party erupted all over the stadium.
In that moment, my personal loss became real.
For years, Buffett’s music had been a soundtrack to my life. I saw him roughly twenty-five times. No performer was ever more fun. Buffett concerts were not simply concerts. They were celebrations. Complete strangers became friends for an evening. People who had spent the entire week carrying the burdens of work, family and everyday life suddenly found themselves smiling, singing and laughing.
Jimmy Buffett wasn’t just a musician. He had become an important part of my life. I still listen to him, a lot.
The same thing happened in a different way with Bruce Springsteen.
One of the most memorable concerts I ever attended was keyboardist Danny Federici’s final appearance with the E Street Band in Indianapolis in 2008. At the time, we knew Danny was battling serious health issues. What we didn’t know was that it would be the last time he would ever appear on stage with the band.
A few weeks later he was gone. When I listen to Sandy today, I don’t just hear a song. I remember that night, and Danny Federici playing the accordion standing next to his blood brother band mate “the Boss”.
Music has a way of attaching itself to moments. Sometimes it attaches itself to the biggest moments of our lives. Sometimes it attaches itself to the ordinary ones. And I know I can count on it, in fact I’ve come to rely on it.
As retirement approaches after forty years as a judicial officer (yes I do have a day job), I find myself listening to different songs than I did when I was twenty-five.
One artist I regret I never saw in concert is John Prine. But his music can hit like a tidal wave. His classic, Hello in There, affects me in a way it never could have years ago. Part of that comes from age. Part of it comes from spending nearly forty years as a judge, working with elderly people who were in many cases vulnerable, lonely, forgotten, or simply in need of someone to advocate for them.
Prine’s song reminds us that growing old does not make us any less human. The people in nursing homes, assisted living facilities and courtrooms are not statistics. They are people with stories, memories, triumphs, heartbreaks and families.
That lesson never gets old.
Neither does Waiting on a Friend by the Rolling Stones.
Of all the great Stones songs, that one has long been a favorite, perhaps because it reminds us that friendship is one of life’s greatest gifts.
As I look back, I realize that friendships have enriched my life every bit as much as the music itself. Friends who shared road trips to concerts, friends who sat beside me in stadiums and arenas, and friends who remained by my side long after the final encore.
The older I get, the more I understand what that song was trying to tell me.
And that brings me back to Bruce Springsteen.
Not to the second-row seat at Notre Dame in 1978, remarkable as that was. Not to Danny Federici’s final appearance in Indianapolis. Not even to the countless hours I have spent listening to Bruce’s music over the years.
It brings me back to Soldier Field in 1985. I had a ticket. A young woman named Lynda needed one.
That concert became our first date.
Neither of us could have known where that evening would lead.
A marriage. Children. Grandchildren. Thousands of ordinary days that, looking back, turned out to be extraordinary.
Years later, Bruce Springsteen would become part of our family story in another way. My son AJ once wrote a college essay entitled, “I’m Alive Today Because of Bruce Springsteen.” That title always made me smile.
A few years ago, Lynda, AJ, and my other son, Nick and I stood together at Wrigley Field watching Bruce perform. Looking around that stadium, I realized that what began as a first date had become a family tradition.
When I hear another favorite, My Life by the Beatles today, I think about all the places I’ve been and all the people who have traveled the journey with me. When I hear Waiting on a Friend, I think about friendships that have sustained me through every season of life. When I hear Hello in There, I think about the elderly men and women I have encountered during forty years on the bench and the privilege of helping protect some of society’s most vulnerable citizens.
And when I hear Margaritaville, I smile. Not because it is the greatest song ever written, but because it reminds me of good friends, good times, and a philosophy that encouraged me not to take myself too seriously.
Recently, I bought tickets to see Herb Alpert. He will be 91 years old when I see him. Think about that for a moment—ninety-one. He has nothing left to prove and nowhere he has to go. Yet he’s still out there performing, because he loves the music.
I can’t wait to spend an evening with one of the true legends of American music.
Some people might wonder why a man in his sixties is still going to concerts. The answer is simple. I am no longer chasing the next great show, I am collecting the next great memory.
Music has given me a lifetime of them—from Elton John in 1974 to Kiss in 1977, Springsteen in 1978, Farm Aid in 1985, twenty-five Jimmy Buffett concerts, and Billy Joel, Alice Cooper, Neil Young, the Eagles, Chicago, John Mayer, Zach Bryan, and so many others.
The music has been wonderful. But the older I get, the more I realize that the music was not the whole point. Rather the larger point was the people—the friends sitting beside me, the memories created along the way, and the young woman I met at a Bruce Springsteen concert who became my wife.
In the end, the soundtrack of a life is not measured by records sold, chart positions, or even the number of concerts attended. It is measured by the people who were there when the music was playing and the joy it brought.
And when I look back on my life, I realize I’ve been blessed with a pretty great soundtrack.