Seeing Bruce Springsteen play is kind of like witnessing a living, breathing, jumping Mount Rushmore -- he's the American musical establishment with a heart and a conscience, a middle-aged man still playing with his high school friends, seemingly without losing any of his youthful energy or passion. Springsteen brought his 10-piece E Street Band -- which includes his wife Patti Scialfa, guitarists Nils Lofgren and Little Steven Van Zandt and pianist Roy Bittan -- to the open SkyDome on a beautiful moonlit night and masterfully orchestrated its transformation from a sports stadium into a rock-and-roll gospel revival meeting.

They started quietly, playing a lovely, respectful cover of the late Warren Zevon's My Ride's Here and pensive recent songs like Empty Sky and The Rising, from Springsteen's much-lauded, post-9/11 album, and the older The Ties That Bind, accompanied by accordion and violin.

Gradually, though, things began to heat up. During Darlington County, on which the audience joined in on the "sha-la-las," Springsteen went from standing more or less still in front of the mic to hanging upside-down on the mic stand, and running across the front of the stage to slide on his 54-year-old knees.

And things grew steadily more intense as they went through Because The Night, She's The One and Badlands. Springsteen introduced the gospel tent idea during Mary's Place -- a nostalgic remembrance of the days of rock-and-roll dance parties -- by asking, "Are you ready for a pants-dropping, love-making, death-defying, sexifying, mud-wrestling, rock-and-roll exorcism?" and proceeding to rock the house.

But the Boss and co. weren't even close to their peak. Things continued with a note-perfect version of the too rarely performed Jungleland, No Surrender, bits of the old gospel tunes This Train and People Get Ready and a crowd-wide howl at the full moon.

Not surprisingly, the ageless Born To Run was the closing highlight, before a couple of encores that included the anguished My City Of Ruins and Land Of Hope And Dreams and a cheerful romp through Moon Mullican's Seven Nights to Rock. Then as a parting gift, they played the divine Rosalita from the early album The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle, and a lively Dancing In The Dark to send the folks home exhausted and happy, with their faith restored.

Bill Daverne isn't positive, but he doesn't think he'll make it to Friday night's Bruce Springsteen concert at the new Gwinnett Arena. This seems reasonable, as Daverne lives in Ontario, Canada -- 18 hours away by car. Still, this is the same man who, after a Springsteen show in Detroit last August, drove 27 hours straight to the next one in Las Vegas. He's racked up 350,000 kilometers (forgive the metric, he's Canadian) on his Chevy Blazer -- most of which have been in following Bruce from show to show. Of Springsteen's last 89 North American concerts, Daverne has seen 85. So it is with a certain amount of regret that Daverne mulls the prospect of missing out on the Gwinnett show -- Springsteen's second concert in three months in the Atlanta area.

But even if Daverne doesn't come, his presence will be felt. He and a few other hardcore fans are the creators of the orderly yet unofficial system for general-admission entry to Springsteen shows -- masters of the line that snakes outside virtually every venue on Bruce's current North American tour. If you're a Springsteen fan and you want to be front and center at a concert, at some point you'll probably meet Daverne and his team. And you'll soon learn this is no ordinary line. Bitch about the rules, and you'll probably hear at least one rabid fan tell you, "You've gotta want it." Spend a few hours -- or a few days -- in line with these guys, and you'll find out just how bad.

One of the many paradoxes of Bruce Springsteen is that, for a guy who sings about the downtrodden and disenfranchised, his fan base is anything but. The downtrodden can't afford $75 for a concert ticket. The disenfranchised can't take off days from work to follow his tour from city to city. So when Springsteen prevails upon his audience to help out the local food bank, the same audience applauds between gulps on their $7 beers and then, on the way to the $15 parking lot, dutifully throws a few bucks into the charity buckets.

For years, there's been a part of Springsteen's live show off-limits to all but the most privileged -- the front row. If a Springsteen concert is, as many have called it, a religious experience, front and center is ground zero for conversion. Die-hard fans, though, devoid of industry connections or the big bucks to pay off a scalper, were screwed.

Until this tour. Last summer, Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, announced that for this tour, in support of the Sept. 11-inspired The Rising, arena floors would be entirely general admission. No seats.

With one fell swoop, Springsteen took the best seats in the house from the scalpers and put them in the hands of fans. "It leveled the playing field," says Chris Phillips, who edits Backstreets, a quarterly magazine devoted to all things Springsteen. Front and center now required only a general admission ticket. Egalitarianism in action.

But who would get those lucky spots near the stage? With 1,800 general admission tickets sold for each show, there was a risk of pandemonium. Imagine, 1,800 middle-aged white people rushing to stake out a spot near the front of the stage.

Not to worry. Bruce's people set up a barricade about 20 feet back from the stage, and would allow only 300 people into the "pit." Which led Daverne and friends to wonder, "How will the line for those 300 coveted spots work?" At the early shows, they tried out a system: They set up operations outside the arena and started a list. Join the line, and you got your name on the list and a number on your hand. You were told you must return at certain times for roll calls. Miss any of the roll calls and you lost your place in line.

It seemed simple. Check-ins meant that fans could come and go; as long as they made their check-ins, they were free to take a nap, go back to their homes, their jobs, whatever. "It was, in effect, a virtual line," Daverne says. "People would be healthy and awake at the time of the concert."

What's more, on the day before a show, Daverne and company would stagger the check-ins -- 8 a.m., noon, 4 p.m. -- to feasibly allow a fan to go to work. In this way, the line would accommodate the realities of the typical Springsteen fan -- who, frankly, doesn't mind acting like a teenager, but has the responsibilities of an adult.

"Look, I'm not a Limp Bizkit fan," says 44-year-old Woodstock resident Julie Stobbe, who first saw Springsteen back in 1974 at Kent State. "I'm not gonna stay out all night. We're all responsible job-holding members of the community."

Daverne and fellow line organizers hold no official title. They're not endorsed by the band, the promoters, the arenas. Their legitimacy is conferred only because nature abhors a vacuum; somebody has to do it.

"You have to give credit to them for giving it some semblance of order," says Phillips, the magazine editor. "If it's not an impartial body -- whether the Springsteen organization or the venues themselves -- taking it into their hands, I'm glad someone's doing it."

Of course, the line is not without flaws. Its unofficial status means that word of it is spread not by concert promoters or even by most arenas, but through message boards on the Internet. And even Daverne admits that he'd just as soon not let everyone know that the general admission line even exists.

"We really work hard to reduce the stampede effect. We urge people in line not to mass broadcast that there is a line. Not to put it on the Internet. [Because] suddenly, you'll have 250 people in line two days before the concert."

Attitudes like this likely aren't appreciated by the uninitiated, who might have thought they had a shot at getting close to Bruce by showing up just two hours before show time. Fat chance.

"The counter-argument is if you've bought this ticket, and you're not sure what GA [general admission] means, you should look into it," Daverne says.

Last December, the message boards were burning up with accusations of favoritism. That puzzled Daverne, who said that, on average, he would field about one complaint for every 300 people in line. And Stobbe, who's stood in a few GA lines herself, says, "A lot of it is sour grapes. I know the guys who run the line. It is a thankless job."

For Springsteen's Dec. 2 show at Philips Arena, Angel Sorrells was second in line. Starting Saturday morning, she came back time after time for roll calls, leading up to the Monday night show. The weather was bitterly cold that weekend, and check-ins would often be done in the warmth of the CNN center. But on Monday, the lines moved outside, along the northern wall of the arena.

With her was her 17-year-old niece, Marti Dunaway, who'd driven up from Forsyth, just north of Macon. Says Sorrells: "She's leaving for college in the fall and I said, 'You need a little religion before you go.'"

Marti can be forgiven her skepticism. "He's Bruce Springsteen and I'm 17," she says, and that pretty much sums it up. But the concert was on her aunt, and she'd been listening to some of the studio stuff. So, after 60 hours of line navigation, there she was, front and center, clutching a sign that said, "Kiss me Bruce. It's my first show."

Two months later, she's still in awe. "That old man can work it! He's like 53. He works it like he's 12 or 13. It was just amazing. When he brought that guitar down during 'Born to Run' and let us play it? That was me, dude!"

Today, all she listens to is Bruce. And suffers the slings and arrows from her peers.

"They're like, 'You like him?' I'm like, 'Yeah, he's the greatest.'

"People just don't understand."

Saying that Bruce Springsteen has been slowed by age is like saying that Mario Lemieux has lost a step. Technically it might be true, but when it comes to putting on a show he is still capable of shaming performers half his age.

Sure the concerts don't seem to go on forever anymore. Last night's sold-out set at the Air Canada Centre, while clocking in at nearly three hours, would have been a mere preamble to some of Springsteen's marathon efforts of the 1970s. But it's unlikely that many among his consistently delirious Toronto fans went home disappointed — or, of that matter, with much energy left in the tank either.

Springsteen, who turned 53 in September, joked as much halfway through the first encore when he mused aloud to longtime guitarist Steve Van Zandt, "I think it's Canadian bed time." The denial from the other side of the stage came via yet another sustained chorus of "Broooooce." As if to test the audience's stamina, Springsteen and his E Street cohorts proceeded to launch into a blistering assault on "Born To Run" that left everyone breathless.

The main difference between the current tour and the E Street Band reunion trek that stopped at the ACC for two nights in 2000 is that Springsteen has a new album to promote this time around, which made the evening seem less like a "best of" exercise. And the show was better for it.

The band wasted little time delving into The Rising, Springsteen's post-9/11 effort of earlier this year, opening the show with a forceful rendition of the title track, followed by the equally anthemic "Lonesome Day."

Whatever reservations one might have about the disc, which generally lacks the vivid detail of Springsteen's best work, it's clear that this material was made for live presentation. No one has ever doubted Springsteen's conviction. And his delivery of the opening two songs bristled with determination.

It was long before Springsteen's wife, acoustic guitarist and backing vocalist Patti Scialfa, joined her husband at the microphone, often as part of a trio that included Van Zandt, with his familiar bandana and ear-to-ear grin.

The 10-piece band ripped through the first five songs without pausing to let the audience vent. Just when it seemed that Clarence Clemons had been assigned to tambourine detail, the formidable saxman had his first chance to cut loose on "Night" from 1975's breakout release Born To Run. Clemons, always a favourite with Toronto audiences, was the last to get his due when it came time for band introductions, unleashing a loud torrent of approval.

The elder Springsteen has not only learned how to pace himself, but he did a better job than last time of orchestrating the emotions of the audience as well. He actually asked for quiet before shifting into a quieter mood for "Empty Sky" and "You're Missing," two of the more contemplative tunes on the new disc. And for the most part, fans did as they were told, sitting attentively while Springsteen went to the piano for a solo rendition of "If I Should Fall Behind."

Not that the audience could be kept at bay for long. The house took "Waiting For A Sunny Day" as a signal to resume its vocal appreciation, and were in full froth for a mid-set romp through "Badlands," "She's the One" and "Mary's Place."

Springsteen was with them every step of the way. Attentive those seated behind him, he raced around the stage on a couple of occasions, at one point leaping up on top of the piano and pumping his fist in the air.

He even managed a few of those signature knee slides that carried him across length of a ramp in front of the set.

Past his prime? Maybe. But nowhere near ready for retirement.

"I always believed the fans are there for something. It's more than just a personality cult. They're there because of certain music they love, ideas that perhaps you have in common, or there are certain values they feel they share with you. Hopefully those are the things they are cheering at the end of the day."

Bruce Springsteen, on ABC Nightline with Ted Koppel, July 30, 2002

For a select group of fans, the euphoria brought on by a Bruce Springsteen concert becomes an addiction. Night after night on tour after tour, flocks of diehard devotees criss-cross states, countries and even continents to follow The Boss.

These fans call themselves Tramps, after a lyric in Born to Run, and though they follow in the tradition of the Grateful Dead's Deadheads, there are some key differences. Springsteen fans are generally older, have more money to spend and careers to juggle between concerts. The reverence for the New Jersey icon, however, is the same if not greater than any other form of extreme fandom.

"You go to a show and he just grabs you. It's almost like a spiritual experience," explains Dave Rotella, a fan from Niagara Falls who's seen about 50 shows. "He takes you to a different place where you feel great for 3 1/2 hours and you feel like you need to see it again."

For these fans, one show is never enough. At last count, Bill Daverne had seen more than 140 -- at least one show on every tour since 1975. It wasn't until the 1999-2000 reunion tour that his obsession soared to new heights. The 47-year-old freelance writer from Napanee, Ont., travelled more than 200,000 kilometres to 69 North American dates -- all in his gold Chevy Blazer, which he says became an icon and meeting place among fans. It wasn't his original intention to see so many, but once he got started, he just couldn't stop. It's the same story this tour.

"It gets addicting. You want to see what he's going to do the next night," he says. "It feels good. I'm in a crowd where I feel totally comfortable." These days, Daverne is again a tough man to track down. On Springsteen's current romp he's barely missed a beat -- catching all the North American dates until this week, when he skipped a show in Pittsburgh, to return to Toronto in time to help organize the general admission lineup for the tour's only Canadian stop.

The attraction, the Tramps say, is about the lyrics and the message behind them rather than the shows and the music.

"The idea that there is hope really shines through in all of the lyrics," says Rotella. "In fact, Land of Hope and Dreams caught me that way during the last tour. I stood the entire time. I sang that song like it was my own anthem. I left every show on such a high. Too bad the world ends up getting in the way. I guess that's why we all need to see him over and over again."

Rotella has been a fan since the day a girl brought the Born to Run record into his Grade 7 music class in 1977. After she played Jungleland, he was hooked. His days of touring with Springsteen slowed considerably after he was married in 1995, though he was able to convince his wife to make The Boss part of their big day. Their wedding reception began with the song Book of Dreams and ended with his favourite Thunder Road.

Kevin Jessop has seen about 95 shows since he jumped on the Springsteen bandwagon in 1984, including 40 on the last tour in five countries. He saw his first show in Toronto at Exhibition Stadium on Aug. 26, 1985, and still remembers it like it was yesterday.

"I thought it was the greatest show I'd ever seen," the 39-year-old marketing manager from Toronto says. "The first for anything is always really special. I had the worst seat in the house, but I had the best time." He's seen 10 shows on The Rising tour, starting with July's rehearsal concert in Asbury Park and more recently overseas in Paris. For Jessop, the concert itself is only part of the experience. It's the whole ambience surrounding the show -- the tailgate parties, the excitement of being on the road and the bonds formed between communities of fans.

"The shows are bigger than just me. It's a community of people coming together for friendship, entertainment, inspiration and affirmation," Jessop says.

Online communities such as E Street Canada and the Lucky Town Digest help Tramps stay connected between tours. Cindy Galbraith has been part of numerous Springsteen online communities since 1994, and says that through these sites she's met throngs of fans just like her. "Most people don't make new friends at this stage in their life. But I've met hundreds of people through Bruce," the 46-year-old Torontonian says. "And I'd say that at least a half-dozen of them are more than acquaintances. They've become real friends. Our Bruce bond is very special."

Each concert seems to be getting better and better for Galbraith. In Greensboro, N.C., last month she waited in the general admission line in the pouring rain for almost 24 hours. While in line, she talked Bruce with fans, speculating what songs he'd play and what they wanted to hear. She was thrilled when he played Cadillac Ranch and The Fuse, both songs she had chosen.

Dave Massingham of Toronto and his friend Karen Graham of Montreal met through the E Street Canada online forum in May, 2000, and have kept in touch ever since, going to concerts together and corresponding via e-mail. The pair had the thrill of a lifetime when they skipped out of the Buffalo, N.Y., concert early and ended up meeting Springsteen on a small private airfield where he graciously chatted with them, posed for pictures and signed autographs. "My life is complete! A beautiful wife, two great kids and a very good friend (and my good luck charm) Karen Graham, plus an autograph and a meeting with Bruce!" Massingham wrote of his encounter.

Graham too, was equally thrilled with the once-in-a-lifetime experience. She has since had Springsteen's autograph tattooed on to the back of her right shoulder.

These fans will all be at tonight's Toronto show, and they're looking ahead to his Australian and European dates for the spring, as well as an anticipated return to North America in the summer. None of them expect to ever reach their Springsteen saturation point.

"Bruce and the band manage to take the show to another level night after night," Jessop says. "The song selection and performance energy are propelling the show and are what makes us want to come back night after night."