You don't say no to The Boss when he asks to play Leeds Arena

It was Sunday afternoon as I was walking home from my Mum and Dad's house when the phone rang. The person calling was Tony Watson from Leeds Arena with an invitation to have breakfast at their office on Tuesday. He wanted to gather a few people from the local music community together for an announcement that was going to be made that morning. We were all asked to arrive at 8:00am and whilst munching bacon butties and drinking coffee, find out who had been added to the ever growing line-up at the city's new venue. I don't think any of us were expecting the two pieces of news that came our way, firstly that Bruce Springsteen would be playing Leeds Arena and secondly that it would be on Wednesday 24th July, about six weeks ahead of the official opening date.

It had already been announced that the first week (and a bit) of events would include Sir Elton John on 4th September and local lads made good Kaiser Chiefs on Friday the 13th. In fact it seemed as though there was still much work to do inside the venue and there would be a couple of low key test events during August prior to opening to the public in September. It now seems we are going to have the test event to beat all test events when The Boss comes to town.

They told us at the breakfast meeting that Springsteen's management had approached the venue to ask if they could slot a Leeds Arena date in amongst the big outdoor shows that he is doing. I can't imagine there is any other answer than yes please to that request! Somebody like Bruce Springsteen playing our new venue is exactly the kind of statement of intent that is needed to make this one of the first choices for touring bands and artists to play. When the recent Fleetwood Mac tour dates came out I was quite dismayed to see the usual cities of London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow on the list. I want to see Leeds break into that elite group. We have waited so long for an arena to built in Leeds and now that we have one we should look to attract the biggest and the best. It was great to see Billboard, the world's most influential music magazine naming Leeds Arena as the number one venue to watch in 2013, having a Springsteen concert attracting people from far and wide in the summer is a great start.

The official proper opening of Leeds Arena is still the beginning of September when a full and varied series of events will start to take place. In some ways the Springsteen gig will take away the impact of those September gigs, but can you imagine the reaction if it was found out later that the Leeds Arena management had said no to The Boss? They couldn't possibly have refused the offer of what is going to be a massively high profile gig. I'm sure there won't be any other major events happening at the venue between 24th July and 4th September when Elton John plays his first Leeds gig since 1984 (I was there) swiftly followed by Kaiser Chiefs. The Springsteen concert is an unexpected and welcome gift for the city's music fans.He was last here when he played Roundhay Park in July 1985 (and yes I was there too!) It's so good to see that we have finally got round to building a much needed arena in the city. Today we have the added bonus of knowing that it's going to be open even sooner than we thought and that there are three great gigs lined up to start us off.