The Faithful Report for Duty to the Boss

The Pond of Anaheim is a long way from the swamps of New Jersey and the rusted factories of the Northeast, scenes that, set to music, have helped make Bruce Springsteen one of the best-selling acts in rock ‘n’ roll.

But that distance dissolved in the glare of spotlights Sunday as a capacity crowd of 17,000 turned out to hear Springsteen’s first Orange County concert since the reedy New Jersey kid first fronted the E Street Band a quarter-century ago.

“This is very nice--I don’t have to travel far,” said Ned Bergert, 45, of Yorba Linda, who was attending his first Springsteen concert. “He’s never been in concert where I’ve been before.”

While the drought of Springsteen shows was largely a function of venues--no Orange County hall was big enough to hold his fans until the Pond opened in 1993--the idea of Springsteen selling out an arena in the land known for Nixon and Mercedes Benzes isn’t as odd as it might seem. A few tickets for a second show tonight were still available Sunday night.

“It’s incongruous only if you think of Orange County as homogeneous, white, Republican and upper-middle class which, I think we’ve learned, it’s not,” said Jon Wiener, a UC Irvine history professor who has written about pop culture. “Bruce Springsteen sings about the outsiders, the working class. He has been a voice of alienation and rebel youth, and rumor has it that those thing are actually present in Orange County.”

John McElligott, 41, remembers his own rebellious youth growing up in a white-collar Fullerton family in the early ‘70s. He was a continent away from Springsteen’s early landscapes, but the hook was set the moment McElligott heard the opening drum thunder of “Born to Run” more than 25 years ago at a high school friend’s house.

“I think he struck a chord with the kids who were maybe a little rebellious, who weren’t really interested in the status quo that was being handed to them,” said McElligott, who passed up the Pond shows after seeing Springsteen earlier in the tour at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

McElligott, a fundraiser for the United Way of Orange County, said he believes Springsteen’s relevance has matured along with his audience. While Springsteen made his mark singing of such universal teen themes as alienation, rebellion and the double-edged sword of family, the singer’s music now tends to be more engaged with the world, and more evocative of the nuances in emotions that come with age.

“I hate to think of him as an oldies act, but he doesn’t have anything new on the market and his music really isn’t relevant to young people,” McElligott said. “His stuff is aimed more at an older crowd, people who are settling down and having families.”

UC Irvine’s Wiener agreed.

“‘It’s hard for rock stars to grow up,” he said, “and I think Bruce has set a very inspiring example of how it’s possible to grow up and change your mind about a few things and deepen your commitment to a few other things, and keep doing the thing you love most.”

Long identified with populist politics, Springsteen, during this tour, has focused on such issues as the death penalty, which he opposes, and affirmative action, which he supports. In earlier tours, he has backed local labor rights groups and strikes, food banks and homeless shelters, often donating some of the concert or souvenir proceeds.

For the Pond shows, Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County was invited to set up informational tables and donations buckets. Second Harvest also received two sets of tickets for each show to auction off, said Ninnette Selsted, the organization’s resources manager.

Chris Phillips, editor of the 20-year-old “Backstreets” quarterly fanzine, said Springsteen’s left-leaning politics make often-conservative Orange County an ideal place to perform, and proselytize.

“He wouldn’t do much good if he was constantly preaching to the converted,” said Phillips. “If everyone in the audience felt the same way he did, there wouldn’t be much point to it.”

For one fan, Springsteen’s politics and lyrics speak to universal themes.

“It’s an American way of life,” said Carol Erickson, 35, of Redondo Beach, who was attending her first Springsteen concert. “I was driving around listening to his songs on the radio. The metaphors apply to everyone.”

Sunday’s show was the fourth in a series of six Springsteen shows that Bob Windver, 31, a sixth-grade teacher from Redlands, plans to see on the current tour. He saw three shows at Staples Center last fall, will be back again tonight and has tickets to a show next weekend in Las Vegas.

Before Sunday’s show, Windver and his friend, Emil Derdowski, 31, tried to capture what it was that first drew them to Springsteen’s music more than 15 years ago. Derdowski decided it was the consistency.

“Coming here is good for me personally,” Derdowski, a title officer, said. “That lets me know that the music I love is still out there. I come here and it’s like home to me.”

Windver, though, said he was drawn by a sense of physical connection.

“To try to explain, it’s hard,” he said. “You really have to see the cohesiveness within the band. It filters out into the audience and at the end of the night, you really feel like you’ve been part of it.”