I’m 43 years old and, yes, I believe in “Magic” … and “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “The Rising” and “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle.”

Hi, my name is Stuart and I’m a Bruce-aholic.

“Hi Stuart.”

Bruce Springsteen’s newest record, “Magic," is set for release on Oct. 2. Like the days leading up to other Springsteen albums, the anticipation is a slow build, analogous to a kid sitting in class in early June, counting down the days until summer break.

I remember my first taste of Bruce juice. It was 1981 and I was a freshman at Cal State Northridge, vegging out after class in the student union music center where you could choose a record — yes, we’re going back to the days of vinyl — and listen to it in sound-proof booths.

Familiar with the legend of “Born to Run” but not having listened to it in its entirety until then, the music captured me in a way no song or album ever had to that point. Growing up in New York, I was a fan of Billy Joel — that’s the law if you’re raised on Long Island — but Joel’s songs never grabbed me the way Springsteen’s did.

From the opening harmonica of “Thunder Road” to the closing primal scream of “Jungleland,” “Born to Run” left me virtually speechless. It was a masterpiece on first listen and remains Springsteen’s greatest work.

The joy of the live show
But Springsteen, the maker of albums, and Springsteen the concert performer are two entirely different creatures. The music at a Springsteen show doesn’t just come alive, it encompasses you in the way a train would affect your balance if you were standing on the edge of the platform and it passed at 150 mph. It leaves you barely holding on, as you feel the rush of energy move through you on every note, on every lyric sung.

Bruce Springsteen on TODAY Springsteen: ‘The Promised Land’ Sept. 28: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform “The Promised Land” on TODAY. Springsteen: ‘Radio Nowhere’ Springsteen: ‘Last to Die’ Springsteen: ‘Living in the Future’ Springsteen: ‘My Hometown’ Springsteen: ‘Night’ Bruce and the band take five with TODAY Springsteen on making music

My first show came during the 1984 “Born in the USA” tour, but that’s a somewhat sad story in the fact that I could’ve attended one of “The River” shows three years earlier. In one of those decisions that you regret as soon as you’ve made it, I passed on a ticket because I had English homework that night.

So I’m forced to wait an excruciating three years — after collecting all the bootlegs, buying the albums, reading the Time and Newsweek cover stories, making friends who had been to the ’78 Roxy show and the famed Winterland set in San Francisco — and it’s finally Oct. 25, 1984. I have no idea what time my daughter was born, but I still remember everything about that day. The drive on the Santa Monica Freeway to the Los Angeles Sports Arena, finding a parking spot, checking out the T-shirts, getting to our seats, and waiting … and waiting some more for the show to start. And then, when the venue went completely dark at 8:13 and, above the screaming, all you heard was Springsteen counting down, about to burst into the title track, and it sent me a place I hadn’t been before.

From that point on I was hooked. Springsteen played seven nights in L.A., and I went to all seven shows. On the second leg of that tour, he played the cavernous Los Angeles Coliseum and I was front row, dead center. By that point, the album, tour and even his own persona had taken on industrial-strength proportions.

A staggering seven singles were released from “Born in the USA,” including “Dancing in the Dark” (yes, that’s Courtney Cox dancing with him in the video), “I’m on Fire” and concert fave “Glory Days.”

His energy on stage had no bounds. He’d play a 90-minute first set, an hourlong second set and then three encores, closing out around midnight. The set list changed every night but you could be assured of the staples, songs that had more resonance that others, that, as Springsteen liked to say, “made you glad you‘re alive”: “Thunder Road,” “Badlands,” “The Promised Land,” “Rosalita” and the traditional closer, the “Detroit Medley.”

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