So you meet someone new at a bar, let’s say it’s a girl. You hit it off, share a few drinks, and the night is going well. Eventually, the conversation lulls, the drinks are half-empty and you hit that old standby question, “What kind of music do you listen to?”

For me, the answer is usually “I’m a Bruce Springsteen fan.”

Now, in an age where MGMT (who I can’t stand, by the way) pass for the best band in the country right now, I might as well be telling my prospective lady-friend that I have the swine flu. It doesn’t matter if she and I have the same major, three classes together and live two floors apart from each other. Being a Springsteen fan actually loses me points.

To be fair, the responses aren’t always that harsh. Sometimes, I get the following:

“Well, you are from New Jersey. I guess it makes sense.”

So apparently, the only thing that absolves me from having the cojones to declare myself a fan of the Boss is the fact that I’m from the same state as him. Cold as ice. Also, nonsense.

I’m a fan of Bruce Springsteen because, quite frankly, he’s the best singer/songwriter/performer out there right now. Yeah, that’s right, I said it. I’ve been to a hell of a lot of concerts and I’ve seen a lot of different genres performed, but none of the acts I’ve seen can compare to what Bruce Springsteen did the last time I saw him, at Madison Square Garden last month.

What he did was perform his 1980 album, The River, in its entirety. For the uninitiated, The River is a freaking double-album that’s 20 songs and about an hour and a half long. Just listening to the thing is an exhausting experience. Not only did he play that bad boy to perfection, but he played about fifteen other songs beside it. And he’s sixty. And his bandmates, for the most part, are as old, if not older, than he is. Even a young man would have trouble pulling it off.

Hell, let’s see anyone pull it off. Phish play for 4 hours at a time, but they take an intermission. Springsteen took no breaks at the River concert. He sang his heart out alongside his (heart-stoppin’, pants-droppin’, hard-rockin’, earth shockin’, booty-shakin’, love-makin’, Viagra-takin’, history makin’, legendary)* E Street Band, spinning stories about fathers and sons and death and dreams and the occasional Cadillac ride.

He loves what he does and I love watching him do it. It’s perfect. It’s borderline magical. Seeing him perform brings grown men to tears (I’ve seen it). And listening to his stories is a rare privilege in a scene where so much music is sound and fury signifying nothing.

The best part about Springsteen is that he’s not always trying to make a statement with his music. Sometimes he’s just talking, playing, and spinning fairy-tale love stories that began at a bar with two people talking about music. I wonder what they said they listened to.

* Sorry. I couldn’t resist.