I was hoping Springsteen in Kansas City would be my final arena show. I was priced out | Opinion

Just one more concert, Bruce, just one more is all I was asking. I first saw you on March 27, 1970, fronting Steel Mill in Richmond, Virginia. Having seen you for every Kansas City show through and including 2016, arena shows were becoming a bit much for me.

Diagnosed in September 2020 with a kidney disease and buried under a BiPAP mask in the Olathe Medical Center ICU, I discovered your “Ghosts” video on YouTube. The lyrics kept me going: “I’m alive, I can feel the blood shiver in my bones/I’m alive and I’m out here on my own/I’m alive and I’m coming home/Yeah, I’m coming home.”

I made it home all right, but wanted to hear “Ghosts” live.

As I wrote in a previous guest commentary for The Star last fall, advance tickets for your February stop in Kansas City were sadly not in my wife’s and my price range. I had hoped they would get cheaper by showtime, but that didn’t happen.

With ocular myasthenia gravis, steps and high places can lead to eye strain, vertigo and double vision, thus an eye-patch always with me. No night driving, either. The only seats I could safely reach in T-Mobile Center — safely one step down from the 100-level concourse — stood at $299.95 each, not counting fees.

I keep picturing that ghost of myself in online Kansas City concert pictures and crowd videos.

It’s been a fun 53-year-ride, Bruce. What could have been my last arena show should have been yours. Now that distinction goes to the Dixie Chicks a few months after your stop in 2016.