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Asbury Park's Fast Lane, where Springsteen and Bon Jovi played, comes to a dead end
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The Fast Lane, a legendary bar/nightclub/music venue in Asbury Park, is going to be torn down early next week. I spent many a night there, starting in 1979, enjoying some fine music. Here are some of my Fast Lane memories:
It was a quiet, cold Wednesday night in Asbury Park on Jan. 9, 1980. I was 19, in between semesters of my sophomore year at St. John's University in New York. I went with some friends from high school to the Fast Lane on Fourth Avenue, just a block from the beach. The drinking age was 18 then.
The Fast Lane was my usual hangout/bar in Asbury Park. The place was welcoming, the Molsons were always cold, the good-looking bartenders were always friendly and there usually was a good show. A year earlier I had seen Bruce Springsteen play there as a guest with the Beaver Brown Band a few times.
On this night, we were checking out a band called Atlantic City Expressway. "You'll like them," my friend Billy Smith from Neptune told me. "They have a horn section and play Springsteen and Southside Johnny covers."
Atlantic City Expressway had a young, energetic lead singer who was running around the stage. There were maybe 100 people in the Fast Lane and soon we noticed that Bruce Springsteen was among the small crowd, just hanging out at a back bar.
When Atlantic City Expressway started to play "The Promised Land," Bruce jumped onstage to sing along for only about a minute or so. A Springsteen sighting in a bar was (and still is) always exciting, and to see him sing along on one of his songs was really cool.
Around 1986, Billy asked: "You were at the Fast Lane that night Bruce played with Atlantic City Expressway, right? Do you know who their lead singer was?"
Honestly, I didn't know, I just remembered that he was young and pretty good.
"That was Jon Bon Jovi, who was John Bongiovi at the time," Billy told me. "You most likely saw the first time Bruce and Bon Jovi ever performed together."
Bon Jovi was then a senior at Sayreville High School and performing in bars at night. He would also play the Fast Lane in following years with his bands, The Wild Ones and The Rest.
Ahh, that was 33 years ago. It's time to reminisce as my old haunt is set to be torn down. What I always called "the second most famous nightclub in Asbury Park" (behind the Stone Pony) will meet the wrecking ball so that Asbury Lanes, the vintage 1960s era bowling alley and music venue located next door, can expand its outdoor area. Another piece of Asbury Park rock 'n' roll history is disappearing.
Gary U.S. Bonds in 1979
The first time I was in the Fast Lane was early in January 1979. I went with Billy to check out Gary U.S. Bonds. I didn't know much about him but did know that Springsteen covered his song "Quarter to Three" in the encores of his shows. We thought a Springsteen sighting might be a possibility and I was curious to see Bonds, who had some classic hits.
Well, there was no Bruce appearance that night, but E Street Band bass player Garry Tallent was there and joined Bonds onstage for a few songs at the end. At 18, I thought it was really cool to see a member of the E Street Band in my local bar.
April 13, 1979 the Friday night before Easter. The Beaver Brown Band (later John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band) from Rhode Island was playing. They were kind of a clone of Springsteen and the E Street Band. Cafferty, the lead singer, reminded me of Bruce at times and they had an African-American saxophone player, Mike "Tunes" Antunes. They were really good, played a lot of original music and did a Springsteen cover, "Thundercrack."
It was late and all of a sudden, as the encore started, I heard a buzz toward the stage. I look up and there's Bruce Springsteen. It was my first time seeing Bruce in a bar after hearing about his many appearances at the nearby Stone Pony and other places in Asbury Park. Bruce played "Rosalita" and I walked out of there at 3 a.m. (the bars were open that late then) with a natural high. I had just seen Bruce Springsteen play in a bar.
Beaver Brown was playing all weekend and, on Sunday night, Bruce was back again to play four songs with them.
Over the next few months, I saw Bruce in the Fast Lane a couple of times, he was mostly hanging out and sometimes he was with his then girlfriend, the actress Joyce Hyser. Bruce was always very approachable in the Fast Lane for an autograph, a quick chat, or even to sit and have a beer with. This was the period between "Darkness on the Edge of Town" and "The River."
Springsteen's birth announcement
In 1979, I was working part-time in the newsroom of the Asbury Park Press. One day, I went into the microfilm files and wanted to find Bruce Springsteen's birth announcement. After a little bit of time, I found it, although his parents’ last name was misspelled as "Springstein." I made a copy of the announcement and hoped to show it Bruce one night at the Fast Lane.
Another person I met at the Fast Lane was Dave Marsh, a writer for Rolling Stone who would later write a few on books on Bruce.
It was Fri., Oct. 5, 1979 and Beaver Brown was playing again that night. Bruce was there and instead of going up to him to show him the birth announcement, I asked Dave Marsh if I should do it. "Of course, he would love to see this. Come on, I'll take you over to meet Bruce."
Wow. I'm kind of shaking but also excited as we went up to Bruce at the bar. He was by himself and Dave says, "you won't believe what this guy has." Dave shows him the birth announcement, points out the misspelling and Bruce looks at it and says "Wow, that's wild!" Dave says to him, "I wonder if your mother even has that?" Dave wrote about the birth announcement in his 1987 book "Glory Days."
Later that evening Bruce played four songs with Beaver Brown. Also jamming that night was Vini Lopez on the drums, the first time in more than five years that he had shared a stage with Bruce. Marsh was even on stage playing a tambourine.
I saw many great shows at the Fast Lane, including Flo and Eddie of The Turtles, Carolyne Mas, Sam and Dave and a great band out of Virginia called the Charlottesville All-Stars. "They're better than Southside Johnny and the Jukes" one friend told me. I'm not sure if they were that good, but they were excellent. Bruce jumped onstage with them one night that not too many people seem to remember. Their lead guitarist started playing his guitar behind his head, issuing a challenge to Bruce, which he firmly met.
In addition to Bruce, on many nights you could find Roy Bittan, Garry Tallent and Danny Federici of the E Street Band hanging out and jamming at the Fast Lane, as well as Southside Johnny and members of the Asbury Jukes, including Kevin Kavanaugh, Ed Manion, Richie "LaBamba" Rosenberg and others.
'Hungry Heart" for the Ramones
It was at the Fast Lane where Bruce saw the Ramones perform on March 25, 1979. Joey Ramone asked him to write a song for them. Bruce wrote "Hungry Heart" but his manager Jon Landau told him that it was too good to give to the Ramones.
According to Billy Smith, the building on Fourth Avenue first opened as a club in 1974 as Rocky's Warehouse Saloon (usually called The Warehouse), and that lasted until 1976. It was Hotel California in 1977 and it was The Fast Lane from 1978 until 1981. In 1981 it briefly operated as Hitsville South, then it went back to "The Fast Lane" and stayed open until December of 1982.
U2 played the Fast Lane twice in May and November of 1981. When U2 played at MetLife Stadium in July 2011, Bono reminisced about playing at the Fast Lane, reminded by a set list of the band’s May 31, 1981 gig that a fan handed to him. Bono actually read from the set list, marveling at the fact that the band played three songs — “11 O’ Clock Tick Tock,” “I Will Follow,” and “The Ocean,” in both the main set and again as the encore.
Bon Jovi has frequently mentioned the Fast Lane as the place he got his real musical start on the Shore. He returned to the Fast Lane in September 1989 to play almost the entire show with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. He also played an unannounced show at the club with his band after his album "New Jersey"; came out in 1988
Other acts to play the Fast Lane were Patti Smith, Stray Cats, Rockpile, Joan Jett,Cyndi Lauper, Sly Stone, Hall and Oates, Joe Jackson, George Thorogood, Squeeze, Iggy Pop, David Johansen, Mink DeVille, Ian Hunter, Mitch Ryder, Garland Jeffreys, Mountain, Steve Forbert, Ronnie Spector, James Cotton, Edgar Winter and even Tiny Tim.
In the 1990s, the Fast Lane reopened a couple of times and closed. In 2000, the club attempted to showcase the "Asbury sound,” featuring performers such as Lance Larson, Stringbean and the Stalkers, Billy Hector and Boccigalupe and the Badboys. But the crowds did not come and the club closed again. In late 2006 it reopened again and began hosting shows by local bands such as Readymade Breakup, Rick Barry and the Parlor Mob. The club has not had much activity over the past five-plus years.
So as the Fast Lane is about to disappear from the map, a little more of my youth is gone. It's another place to add to the list of "former locations" when I give a tour of the famous music sites in Asbury Park. One thing that can't be taken away is the great memories that I and so many others enjoyed at 207 Fourth Avenue.
