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Bruce filming video for "Girls in their Summer Clothes"
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"Today is the 10th anniversary of a unique Bruce Springsteen experience a small group of fans had at the Jersey Shore.
It was a cold and brisk day in Ocean Grove, N.J. on Friday, Nov. 16, 2007. The night before Bruce and the E Street Band had played the Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y. on the Magic Tour. That show, which I was not able to attend, had the tour premieres of "E Street Shuffle" and "Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)."
I had been eagerly waiting on the arrival of a great new book on Bruce and the E Street Band called "For You" - the Bruce Springsteen book by Lawrence Kirsch. The book is filled with recollections from Springsteen fans from his Steel Mill days to 2006. That book, now out of print and a collector's item, is a must-have for Bruce fans.
The day before, United Parcel Service had tried to deliver the book to my condo, but it required a signature on delivery so they left me a yellow slip that I had to sign to then get the book.
The following day, Friday, I knew I could usually find my UPS man in his truck down by the beach in Ocean Grove, where he took his lunch breaks.
Around 1 p.m., I drive down toward the beach and I do find the UPS truck and the driver sitting in there having his lunch. I sign for the book and am thrilled to finally have a chance to look through it. As I head back to my car, I hear in the distance "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" playing on a boom box. Now this is a 40-degree, crisp Fall day at the beach, who would be playing a Bruce song that loud on a deserted beach?
I look down Ocean Avenue and see a truck and a trailer. It then hits me, could this be Bruce filming a video?
I drive down three blocks to the area of the Ocean Grove fishing pier and my hunch is correct. There is no one around and there's Bruce Springsteen on the beach being filmed lip-syncing as "Girls in the Summer Clothes" is being played on boom box.
Now this was the days before I was on Facebook and I don't even think I was texting at the time. There were now only a few other people watching this and it was interesting to see some of the props they had set up on the beach including a pinball machine.
There had been a notice a few days earlier that they were looking for people to appear in the video, but that was for Saturday in Asbury Park, so I was very surprised to see the filming here in Ocean Grove.
Bruce does a few takes on the beach and then heads into a trailer they had for him.
They then start to set up a shot just south of the fishing pier (some of which was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy in 2012). Just in front of the boardwalk, on a dune, they are setting up the cameras and a fog machine and it appears Bruce is going to come out and lip-sync the song right there. Now maybe 30 people are there at the most and they tell us we can watch from the boardwalk, we are going to get our own private Bruce show!
The irony of it all was it was a video about summertime and here's Bruce on the beach on a chilly day,.
Bruce comes out, says hello to all of us and starts to strum his guitar. This was the days before I had a camera on my cellphone so I asked the guy next to me, who had a camera, if I could get some copies of his photos He was Andy Russo who took some great photos and remains a friend. Andy currently plays music at bars around the Jersey Shore. I also later found out that someone who I would meet a few years later, Lisa Janish Lesiak was there and she took some great photos too.
Bruce is in a good mood and I believe he was glad to have a small audience to play in front of.
It's really surreal as here we are, no more than 15 feet from Bruce to have him singing right to us. You can see it all on the video.
As they were getting the shot in, the sun was starting to set, so the crew was in a rush to make sure they got it before it was too dark.
It all worked out fine and as you can see on the enclosed video, it was quite a special performance for a small group of fans in Ocean Grove that day. At the end Bruce says to us "Fabulous, just fabulous!" Yes it was."
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Bruce filming video for "Girls in their Summer Clothes"
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"It was one of those rare circumstances of being at the right place at the right time….10 years ago today (totally by chance) I met Bruce on the beach in Ocean Grove, NJ. AMAZING! I stood in awe as he made the video for "Girls in Their Summer Clothes". A dream come true for this Jersey Girl."
| By Lisa Janish Lesiak, about this awesome day, in an article that was published in a book (see News/Memorabilia-tab), that was given to Bruce Springsteen, Stan Goldstein and Andy Russo. |
