For most of the next three weeks, he and his wife will be spending their evenings in Manhattan, taking part in one of the city’s most curious rites of spring: the Allman Brothers Band’s annual run of shows at the Beacon Theater.
Since 1989 the Allman band has played at the Beacon 175 times — and Mr. Springer, 51, has been at every concert. This month he’ll return (to the same seat, next to the lighting board) for 15 more shows as the band settles into the newly refurbished Beacon through March 28.
“My boss thinks I’m out of my mind,” said Mr. Springer, who works at an audio and video company and proposed to his wife during one of the 2005 shows. “I end up taking my vacation a few blocks from where I work. But year after year they continue to amaze me.”
Last year’s shows were canceled while the singer and keyboard player Gregg Allman was undergoing treatment for hepatitis C, so this year’s residency promises extra excitement for fans. It also marks the Allman Brothers’ 40th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of the band’s first appearance at the Beacon. And this run is dedicated to Duane Allman, the band’s founding guitarist, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1971.
“Duane started it all,” the drummer Butch Trucks said by phone from his home in Palm Beach, Fla., “but we’ve done precious little to pay tribute to his memory.”
This run will be different, Gregg Allman said in a phone interview from his Savannah, Ga., home. “Somebody said, ‘Let’s do it in honor of big brother,’ and we all agreed.” The next suggestion, he said, was to invite everyone who played with Duane Allman to make appearances at the shows.
