Phantom

This morning I woke up earlier than usual... so I was a little more bleary-eyed than usual when I read this in my inbox:

RIP, Phatom Dan...

A sad day on E Street...

So glad the last time I saw Bruce I got to see and hear "Kitty's Back" - a virtuoso performance by Federici...

He will be missed. Can't believe one of the original E Streets has left us...

Jim C.

At first I didn't get it... that first line, I couldn't make sense of it, and then it started to dawn on me, and then it came down like a ton of bricks.

Dan Federici, long-time organist and accordionist for Springsteen's E Street Band, passed away from melanoma yesterday afternoon.

The Fall '07 leg of the Magic concert tour was the last one on which "Phantom Dan" was a regular (he left the tour before it went to Europe so Dan could focus on his battle with the cancer). Lisa, I and the boys were there too to hear "Kitty's Back." Now in retrospect all things seemed to point to this: the lack of "Kitty's Back" for this last concert. The "pray for Dan" sign handed up to the stage and its display to the audience at that concert.

The fans in Indy a couple of weeks back got to see his last performance:


Just two nights ago, Bruce debuted in Texas a song I would have loved to see performed live: "Terry's Song."

It's a song that I've listened to many times since discovering it. It's a hidden track on Magic (snuck in after "Devil's Arcade"). It had to be hidden because it was recorded after the rest of the album had been put to bed. But it couldn't wait for another record... it's a memorial to another lost friend, Terry Magovern, written and performed for his funeral. It's a song, given my mom's death so many months ago, and the continuing depression (or at least addition to Wellbutrin)... well let's just say it's a song that brings comfort.

With the performance in Houston, you can't tell me that Bruce wasn't readying himself for this day.

But you can't ready yourself. I don't know... maybe you can. Dan had been battling for the last three years. They must have known. And yet he looks so good in that clip above.

Maybe I can't ready MYself. Have I become the King of Denial in matters mori?

I thank Jim C for alerting me... it was better than hearing it through the news.

Raise a glass tonight, play The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, and tell someone you care about but rarely talk to that you do.

Kev, my friend, this is for you... "when they built you, brother, they broke the mold..."