Springsteen 'Born in the U.S.A.' global tour's humble start at the Stone Pony

ASBURY PARK - The "Born in the U.S.A." album, and the lengthy world tour that followed its June 4, 1984 release, would make Bruce Springsteen an international superstar.

The Boss' seventh studio album spawned seven top 10 singles — including "Dancing in the Dark," "Cover Me," "Glory Days" and "I'm on Fire" — and spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 top album chart, and sold 15 million copies in the U.S. alone. 

The 156-date "Born in the U.S.A." tour was one of the top-grossing tours of the 1980s, taking Springsteen and the band all over the U.S. and Europe and into Australia and Asia. The 1985 stadium leg of the tour saw the band performing before supersized crowds.  

Now, official stats will tell you that the tour began on June 29, 1984, at the St. Paul Civic Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Springsteen famously pulled a very young Courteney Cox up for a rather awkward dance during "Dancing in the Dark" as part of a Brian DePalma video shoot (the song was actually played twice that night). 

But, in a way, the first gig of the "Born in the U.S.A." tour took place at a much, much smaller venue — the Stone Pony in Asbury Park.

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It was June 8, 1984, a Friday night. The "Born in the U.S.A." album had been released four days before.

John Eddie & The Front Street Runners were the headliner, with The Cruisers opening. Rumors had been flying around the Shore that Springsteen was going to play that night.

Of course, back in those days, Bruce Springsteen playing at the Stone Pony was not unusual; a week before, he had jumped onstage to play four songs with John Eddie. In 1982, Springsteen played 14 times at the Stone Pony as part of his "tour" of Jersey Shore clubs, as you can see in the video below. 

On May 26, 1984, The Boss had played "Dancing in the Dark" for the first time at Club Xanadu — located where Porta is now at the corner of Second Avenue and Kingsley Street — performing the song with the band "Bystander."

If there were rumors of a Bruce appearance June 8, Stone Pony disc jockey Lee Mrowicki had not heard them.

"Definitely it was a best-kept secret because even I was clueless that Bruce was going to play," Mrowicki recalled. I would usually check in at the office after getting to the Pony and then head to my DJ booth to get ready to work. Nothing was mentioned."

Neptune native Billy Smith figured it out as soon as he saw that John Eddie was playing first, and that the Cruisers had been bumped from the bill.

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"When we saw that John was playing first and The Cruisers were getting bumped, we knew that it was going to be an E Street Band show," Smith said.

Mrowicki realized it when the crew began setting up the E Street Band's equipment on the Pony's stage. 

"Once I saw Danny’s organ and glockenspiel was set up onstage, you realized something special was about to happen," Mrowicki said, referring to E Street Band organ player Danny Federici. "But I had to keep playing music like usual, except for one thing; I wasn't going to be playing any Bruce songs in that set like I usually did."

Mrowicki's sets filled with Springsteen songs were a staple of the club at that time.

It was a hot night, and the crowd pressed close against the stage.

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Then the band was ready to go on. Mrowicki prepared to do something he did for every other band that graced the Pony stage.

"I got to introduce Bruce and the E Street Band like any other band that played the Pony," he said. "It might have been the last introduction the band ever got because they really didn't need one anymore."

Bruce and the band took the stage: Clarence Clemons, Garry Tallent, Max Weinberg, Danny Federici, Roy Bittan and a newcomer, Nils Lofgren. Lofgren joined the band for the "Born in the U.S.A." tour after Springsteen's long-time bandmate and blood brother Little Steven Van Zandt decided to leave.

Lofgren had been rehearsing with the E Streeters at the shuttered Big Man's West nightclub on Monmouth Street (owned by Clarence Clemons, it closed early in 1983), since early May.

Patti Scialfa had not yet joined the band; she would come on board only days before the band's St. Paul show.

The band's 12-song set on June 6 included four songs from "Born in the U.S.A.": "Glory Days," "My Hometown," "Darlington County," and the title track. 

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Photos from the night show on the indispensable Brucebase page show a sweaty, newly muscular Springsteen wearing a white T-shirt and a bandana, garb that would become standard Boss-wear during the Born in the U.S.A. tour.

Clemons, also drenched in sweat, wears dark sunglasses while blasting away on his saxophone near the front of the stage.

"Everyone jammed up near the stage and it was incredibly hot in there," Billy Smith said.  

In addition to the four new tracks, the band played favorites like "Thunder Road," "Out in the Street," "Born to Run." and "Promised Land."

Springsteen dedicated "The River" to The Cruisers, the band that was bumped that night by the E Street Band.

Mrowicki noticed that people were running to the phone booths on the boardwalk as soon as they knew Springsteen and the band were making a guest appearance.

"Then I noticed more people were coming in the front door," he said. "So I guess people were spreading the word."  

Two days after appearing with the band for the tour warmup, Springsteen and Nils Lofgren would be back at the Pony, performing five songs with Pony house band Cats on a Smooth Surface.

Bruce and band would play another impromptu rehearsal show before they headed out to conquer the world on the "Born in the U.S.A." tour, but this one would be at a small bar in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, The Village bar near Clair Brothers Audio, where Bruce and the E Streeters were trying out new sound and light systems for the tour.

The Boss returned to the Stone Pony on August 22 t to perform with La Bamba and the Hubcaps.

Springsteen was returning a favor, in a way, as The Miami Horns, including Richie "La Bamba" Rosenberg, Eddie Manion, Mark Pender and Stan Harrison (all also members of the Hubcaps) had guested with Springsteen and the E Street Band on August 20, at the last show of a sold-out, 10-night stand at Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford. 

By that time, "Born in the U.S.A." had been at the top of Billboard's album chart for four weeks, before being displaced by another smash hit album, Prince's "Purple Rain." Born in the U.S.A. would again top the charts in January 1985.

"Born in the U.S.A. went nuclear," Springsteen would write in his 2016 autobiography, "Born to Run." "....At 34, I decided to ride it out and enjoy it."

The beginning of that ride was on the Stone Pony stage. 

June 8, 1984 setlist courtesy of Brucebase:

THUNDER ROAD / OUT IN THE STREET / PROVE IT ALL NIGHT / GLORY DAYS / THE RIVER / DARLINGTON COUNTY / DANCING IN THE DARK / THE PROMISED LAND / MY HOMETOWN / BORN IN THE U.S.A. / BADLANDS / BORN TO RUN.

Were you at the Stone Pony on June 8, 1984? If so I'd love to hear from you. And if you like reading stories about Asbury Park's storied music history, please consider a subscription to the Asbury Park Press.

Jean Mikle covers Toms River and several other Ocean County towns, and has been writing about local government and politics at the Jersey Shore for nearly 35 years. A finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in public service, she's also passionate about the Shore's storied music scene. Contact her: @jeanmikle, 732-643-4050, jmikle@gannettnj.com.