Bruce Springsteen is set to play Magnetic Hill in five days and thanks to a generous, but anonymous, benefactor a young man will get to see a second concert in Moncton this summer.
CTV News first introduced you to Jamie Vautour prior to the Nickelback concert in July. Vautour relies on a wheelchair to get around and at first he was concerned he wouldn’t be able to attend the Nickelback show, for which his mother had already purchased tickets, due to a public transit lockout in Moncton.
But an anonymous donor came forward and offered Vautour $200 so he could pay for wheelchair-accessible transportation to see his favourite band, plus some spending money for souvenirs.
The same anonymous donor has come forward once again, this time to help Vautour see The Boss this Sunday, as the Codiac Transpo lockout drags on.
“There is two tickets to the Bruce Springsteen concert, wow!” says Vautour. “It’s amazing how I have people supporting me this year and want me to enjoy myself. If I have anything to say to the person that helped me, ‘thank you,’ because it means a lot.”
“Thank you very much,” says his mother, Pauline. “I really appreciate what you did for me and my son. I can’t thank you enough.”
The donor has paid for two tickets to the Bruce Springsteen concert, plus some spending money and transportation provided by The Wheelchair Guy.
“We are going to be dropping him off and then we will go back and pick him up when the concert is all done,” says Troy Allen of The Wheelchair Guy.
The anonymous donation is not the only act of kindness related to the concert.
Ray Gould is with a Moncton food bank distribution centre and he received a call from Bruce Springsteen’s organizing committee.
“(They) asked us if we wanted to be the charity of choice for the Bruce Springsteen concert,” says Gould.
Site preparation for the concert is already underway at Magnetic Hill, although reports suggest promoter expectations have significantly dropped from around 70,000 to around 30,000 in ticket sales.
With files from CTV Atlantic's David Bell
