Little Steven, Miami Steve, guitar player in the E Street Band, star of Lillehammer and The Sopranos, incredible musician, and founder of the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation.
Steven Van Zandt is the man. And I MET HIM at Louisville.
It wasn’t any big amazing synchronicity. I donated a relatively large sum of money to his foundation and in exchange I got a seat ticket, and admission to a meet and greet. Also was able to bring my friend, Britt. That’s me on the left.
It was a total thrill to be there. We were all gathered in a private room with a complimentary bar (I don’t drink, so I had a cranberry juice fizz) and a view over the river. We all hung out for about 15 minutes after we got into the venue and then Stevie showed up. Early, apparently. He just sauntered in, and Michael-Ann, the awesome woman who runs the meet and greet at each show was like, “Steven! What are you doing here?!”
He just smiled at her and went to sit at the bar, waved his hand and said, “go ahead, organize, I’ll be here having a drink.” It was hysterical!
So she organized us into a line and he came, and we all shuffled through, had a brief exhange (“Hi how are you? You’re awesome, thank you.”), a quick picture snapped by their photographer, and then it was over. He said, “have a great time” to each of us after our picture. We all stood around watching other people get their turn.
After we all got through, he took time to talk to a teenage girl who was there with her father and wants to be a rock and roll music writer. It was really great to see him there talking to her. He was very encouraging and it seemed like by the end they were talking with Michael-Ann about getting the young woman in touch with the executive director of the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation, which was really exciting.
He is just as normal and down to earth and cool as you would expect him to be. It was worth every penny to meet him and it really helped shake me out of the blah I was feeling in the last post.
Getting in to the pit was a sort of surprise bonus and it worked out GREAT for me and Britt. We ended up close to the front in front of Stevie and Patti. The show was awesome. Another post coming real soon with some details on that and a BUNCH of photos.