Last week at work, I unexpectedly won two tickets to the Bruce Springsteen concert. I haven’t been moved to buy tickets to see Springsteen since 1988, when I saw him as part of the line-up in the Amnesty International “Human Rights Now” tour in Philly. But I like Bruce — who doesn’t? — and maybe it was the “unexpected” part, or the “free” part, but I was unaccountably excited to see the show. He did not disappoint.

The Boss holds a special place in the lore of the small liberal-arts college where I did my undergrad. In 1974, before he made it big, he played our dining hall. Lord knows what he thought of the handful of preppy clones from the Land that F.M. Radio Forgot who turned out to see him. Bruce’s subsequent fame, of course, ensured that they never forgot him and guaranteed them a sure-fire cocktail-party story for years to come.

That was before my time. My college cohort also has a concert story, but one that lives in infamy. When I was a junior, the concert committee booked Stevie Ray Vaughan to play the spring festival, but they had to cancel him when the student body purchased only eight tickets. (I wasn’t one of them; I had neither the musical chops nor the $40 to spare.) Thus, we missed the opportunity to see one of the greatest rock guitarists before his death.