Once again, new product from Bruce Springsteen will get a midnight debut at Jack’s Music, where boxes of vinyl LPs awaited sale last week. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
At Jacks Music Shoppe on Broad Street in Red Bank, they’re still dining out on the time that Bruce Springsteen showed up for a late-night release of one of His records.
That was in April, 2001, for the launch of ‘Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live in New York City.’ Rolling in from his home in Rumson, or maybe the one in Colts Neck, Springsteen mingled with fans, posed for photos and signed autographs for 90 minutes, staying until the last sale was rung up.
With just about every Springsteen record release since then, speculation about an encore stirs, nudged along by the scheduling of midnight drops. The last one was in November 2010, with the issuance of a remastered ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town‘ and companion making-of video.
Hey, is it the store’s fault if diehard fans postpone their beauty sleep on the expectation of an appearance?
Tonight, the must-buy-now impulse again mixes with what-if-He’s there? yearning with the hardcopy release of Springsteen’s newest collection, ‘Wrecking Ball.’
Not gonna happen, store employees say. Not this time. Probably.
Hey, who’s to say what Springsteen will do? If he shows up, he shows up.
Whether he does or not, Jack’s will be open for fans who’ve just gotta have their new Bruce before breakfast.
The store will open at 11:30, offering refreshments to customers, and start selling the CDs at midnight.
For fans of old-fashioned vinyl, the store also has a couple of cases of Wrecking Ball in LP format. At $28 a pop, and absent two tracks on the CD, it’s for those Springsteen fans of a particular level of devotion.