As a music journalist, I tend to look at fan armies with only professional interest — what they mean for the industry and how I can make sure they won’t figure out where I live. Last week, however, I suddenly had to face the fact that I’m in one — and I have been for the last 35 years. And I realized that many creators might need to change the way they think about cultivating and keeping superfans., one of my favorite artists, for what must be at least the 30th time.
These people don’t think of themselves as part of a fan army. They don’t have a nickname or collect different versions of the same CD. I don’t, either. In fact, I feel a bit sheepish saying that this concert was one of the highlights of my summer, or that I spent a few hundred dollars to go, but it is and I did, and it was totally worth it.
The problem is that this part of the business is hard to see in data. Industry executives often talk about how much superfans are worth in terms of the CDs orthey buy, but it’s harder to measure the effect of fans who keep coming back over the course of years. I saw one Springsteen show this year and two last year, which doesn’t really move the needle.
Like any true fan, I’m going to say Springsteen is different. More than any other current artist, he believes — and gets concertgoers to believe, at least for the time he’s onstage — that rock actually matters, that there’s more at stake onstage than entertainment, that this kind of music can actually sustain you. As I get older, with less time to drive down an empty highway for no reason at all, it gets harder to believe that. But I’d like to.