Playing hooky for Bruce Springsteen? The Boss signs a kid’s absence note at S.F. show
“Skipping school sign my note?”
Those five words, written in large black letters on a white poster, prompted Bruce Springsteen to help a young fan skip a day of school after his San Francisco concert on Sunday.
Facebook images and video shared by a fan who attended the singer’s Chase Center concert shows the “Born in the U.S.A” and “Dancing in the Dark” singer 74, holding the poster and kneeling to sign what seems to be an absence slip. In the background, members of his E Street Band are seen cheering Springsteen on before he hands back the poster and absence slip and blows a kiss to the crowd.
According to Karen Pitcher Scovell, who captured the moment, the Boss “knelt down directly in front of me to sign a school excuse for the little girl behind me,” who was not featured in the video.
In San Diego on Monday night, the Boss performed one of his first gigs — complete with a guest appearance by a dog — since resuming his world tour postponed last year.
“No words!!!!!,” Pitcher Scovell also said in her post. “To be in such close proximity to greatness was more than I had ever expected.”
Sunday’s show wasn’t the first time the Boss personally signed off on his fans playing hooky. While promoting his memoir in 2016, the “I’m on Fire” hitmaker signed a similar note for a then-10-year-old student in Philadelphia.
Springsteen played two shows in San Francisco after bringing his music back to San Diego last month. At his March 25 concert at the Pechanga Arena, the singer-songwriter delivered a “rousing” three-hour show for his Southern California audience, Times music critic Mikael Wood wrote in his review.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have postponed the remainder of their 2023 tour dates, citing Springsteen’s ongoing treatment for peptic ulcer disease.
“Here his voice was in strong shape in both the roaring uptempo numbers and the stately ballads,” Wood said of the San Diego show.
Springsteen returned to the road this January, months after postponing a handful of U.S. shows last year to deal with a peptic ulcer. Among the postponed shows were the 20-time Grammy winner’s concerts in Los Angeles, initially set for early December.
The “Born to Run” singer will make his L.A. return starting Thursday at the Forum. After that, he will take the same stage again on Sunday before heading to the East Coast.
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