Bruce Springsteen: The human touch

Saturday night in Greensboro, Bruce Springsteen dusted off an old song he seldom plays anymore -- "Human Touch," from the early-1990s period when Springsteen wasn't playing with the E Street Band. But that song's placement in the Greensboro set list was no accident. It's the favorite Springsteen song of Claude Rossini, a Raleigh man in the latter stages of cancer. Rossini was there to hear it at Springsteen's invitation, an experience he later called "the most incredible night of my life."

"It was a long chain of events where a friend who knew somebody passed a note to Little Steven's wife, who got that note to Bruce," says Rossini. "He called very quickly and we spent about a half-hour on the phone. We spoke about marriage and children. We're the same age, so it was very emotional. And at the end of the conversation, he said, 'If there's anything I can do, you know how to get in touch.'"

Rossini decided he wanted to go to the Greensboro show, and Springsteen's people set it up. He and his family got the red-carpet backstage treatment, including a pre-song dedication before "Human Touch," which left him blown away.

"There's a lot of demand on his time and money," Rossini says of Springsteen. "He's a very benevolent human being, moreso than people know. But I shouldn't have expected anything less because that's just the kind of person he is. It was like a dream and a fantasy and a movie all rolled into one."

(Thanks, Doug.)