Sea.Hear.Now: Bruce, Patti and the E Street Band turned Asbury Park into OUR Hometown

Bruce Springsteen. The E Street Band. Asbury Park, NJ. My Jersey Girl. The Beach. The Boardwalk. The Sand. The Surf. The Moon. The Music. Will I ever recover? It's unlikely.

Bruce Springsteen leads the E Street Band at the 2024 Sea.Hear.Now Surf, Music and Art Festival, Sept. 15, in Asbury Park, NJ. Courtesy Photo/SeaHearNow/Roger Ho

Three weeks have passed since I stood on the beach in Asbury Park, NJ, with my beautiful wife, my Jersey Girl, by my side; sand between my toes; the ocean pounding on the shore; a blazing moon above; tens of thousands of very happy people surrounding me; and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on stage, channeling celestial and nautical spirits with the roar of a barreling freight train and the desperation of a lonely lighthouse fog horn. 

Surely, Poseidon himself, watching over us all from the churning waters of the nearby Atlantic, ratified and validated this shindig and declared all to be in order for the 2024 Sea.Hear.Now Surf, Music and Art Festival, on the sands of Asbury. Without uttering a word, Poseidon, by ushering all of us through the day and night, proclaimed for all to hear that the festival gods had spoken—and they were pleased.  

Bruce opened the show with “Lonesome Day,” and let me tell you for free that all that is good in humanity, in Asbury Park and beyond, took centerstage during that song’s refrain— “It’s Alright/It’s Alright/It’s Alright/YEAH!” Yes, as that song kicked off such an empowering evening and an emboldening, transformational musical experience, everything was, indeed, alright. 

I wish we could all return to Asbury once a week to relive that experience. 

My wife, who grew up near Long Branch and is a Jersey Shore gal through-and-through, called the next song, “Blinded By the Light.” And from there on in, through the rest of that glorious evening, we were all on cruise control, firmly strapped in, with harness and helmet, on the Springsteen Seaside Express Limited Railroad Line. 

I typically head to the Jersey Shore for the spiritual and physical cleansing that salt brings me—salt in the water, salt in the air. I always go home a changed person, for the better. 

On Sept. 15, that salt did its thing as it has for the past 55 years. But man, oh man, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band worked in tandem with mother nature to ensure that night’s saline scrub would last me until next summer. My soul, my spirit, I turned it all over to Bruce, the band and the gods of sea and salt. 

Taking a step back and sorting through the big picture of Sea.Hear. Now, I’d like to express my gratitude to Patti Scialfa. She joined her husband and his band for “Tougher than the Rest” and just took the place over. For that song, that festival belonged to Patti. She drove the train, she steered the ship and the sea rose and fell on her command. 

Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa perform at the 2024 Sea.Hear.Now Surf, Music and Art Festival, Sept. 15, in Asbury Park, NJ. Courtesy photo/SeaHearNow/Ismael Quintanilla III

And my goodness there was some crazy heat going on between husband-and-wife on that-there-stage. The entire Sunday was pure rock ’n roll, and Bruce and the band set that on fire. But Bruce turning the whole operation over to his sweetie for that one song, and Patti lighting the fuse as only she can, that’s what I’ll remember those two musicians for, from here on in. 

I’d also like to express my gratitude to Asbury Park photographer and gallery owner Danny Clinch, who along with his Sea.Hear.Now team delivered an event that was pure gold on so many levels—logistically, mechanically, spiritually, culinarily and sonically. Danny and the team reminded us all how the arts drive the economy, and he does that year-round at his Transparent Clinch Gallery, just a block from the beach in Asbury, not far from where he grew up, in Toms River. 

Back at the festival, my wife and I did a bit of roaming on the beach during the show and I’ll never forget looking at everyone, as they watched Bruce perform. Everyone was so—content. They were vibing out heavy waves of peace and delight and satisfaction and strength. With the moon and the surf and the sand between my toes and my favorite gal by my side, I felt like I had stumbled into a movie. Not onto a movie set, mind you, but an actual movie. We had crossed over into an alternative reality. 

Sure, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were the headliners. But we, us, the crowd, all of us who had schlepped to the beach, we were the stars of that movie. 

The crowd on the beach in Asbury Park, NJ, for the 2024 Sea.Hear.Now Surf, Music and Art Festival. Courtesy photo/SeaHearNow/Ismael Quintanilla

I was reminded at that moment of a recorded interview that was shown as part of U2’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. You’ll remember that Bruce inducted the lads from Dublin, live and in person. But they also showed this video interview with U2 Guitarist The Edge. And the line that I have carried from that brief interview is one of the greatest things ever said about rock music. 

When fans during a U2 show are screaming and cheering and hooting and hollering, Edge said, something to the effect of, “They’re not cheering for us. They’re cheering for themselves.” Right on, Edge. 

In some respects, Bruce at Sea.Hear.Now was just another guy from New Jersey, reflecting on times gone past in his old neighborhood.

I’m getting chills right now recalling how Bruce started the show by saying, “Greetings, Asbury Park.” 

After opening with “Lonesome Day,” he introduced the next tune by saying, “I wrote this song about 500 yards north, on Loch Arbour Beach.” He then launched into “Blinded by the Light.”

Two songs later, during “Growing Up,” Roy Bittan’s boardwalk-carnival-carousel-musical-jewelry box piano playing took centerstage as Bruce took us deeper down memory lane, or, actually, on a street-by-street audio tour of Asbury. Just like his Asbury Park brothers and sisters standing on the beach, that guy and that band did not lose sight of the fact, as Sea.Hear.Now raged, that Asbury has come many moons from its twisted days of decrepit buildings, abandoned boardwalk and compass gone haywire.

“There I was,” he said as Roy played, “driving down Kingsley. The streets were empty. Buildings all shut down. Nobody on Cookman Avenue. Nobody on Main Street. Nobody on Ocean Avenue. Nobody anywhere. And then, I feel into a drrrrrrrreamy sleep, and when I woke up, I said, “Where did all these fucking people come from?’ I can tell ya one thing—it’s good to see ya here. Let’s hear three cheers for Asbury Park making its way back.”

And then Bruce evoked Santa Claus with a hearty, merry and robust laugh.

Photo by John W. Barry

As someone who—no disrespect, Bruce—heard enough of the “Born in the U.S.A.” album in the 1980s to last me this and my next lifetimes, I wasn’t crushed that The Boss only played two songs from that blockbuster release—”Bobby Jean” and “Dancing in the Dark.” He certainly didn’t overlook anything by leaving “My Hometown” off the set list. At Sea.Hear.Now, Asbury was his hometown, my hometown and, if you were there, your hometown. Through Bruce’s generous spirit, his hometown became our hometown. It was a feeling and an experience and a concept that transcended words and music and even The Boss himself.

So let’s hear three cheers for Bruce Springsteen, the guy who grew up in Freehold, in the parish of St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, and conquered the world, but always landed right back where he began.

Yeah, Bruce was a rock star up on that Sea.Hear.Now stage. But in front of all those thousands he was also just a regular guy; one of us; someone who like his fans rides his own waves, the ups and downs of life; the good days and the bad days, praying it’s all steady as she goes.

And just like me, Bruce enjoys the smell, but not the taste of coffee. And just like me, he finds salvation on the beach in Asbury Park, where the surf, the sand, the salt, the sea and the air deliver, with each crash of a wave, a promise that, life’s ups and downs be damned, “It’s Alright/It’s Alright/It’s Alright/YEAH!” 

Visit seahearnowfestival.com and transparentclinchgallery.com to have your minds blown.