Bruce Springsteen’s fanzine is closing over the Boss’ high ticket prices. Here’s why it matters.

It will remain the coolest job title of my journalism career: assistant editor of Backstreets, the long-running Bruce Springsteen fanzine.

It was 2000, I was just out of college, living in Washington, D.C., and the job paid $10 an hour. I would have done it for free.

Backstreets, as its editor Christopher Phillips wrote in an editorial this week, announcing that the magazine would stop publication after 43 years, straddled the line between fan worship and serious music reporting. It didn’t shy away from criticism or controversy. (During my tenure, the magazine angered many fans by supporting Springsteen’s stance against police brutality with his protest song, “41 Shots,” about the NYPD’s killing of Amadou Diallo.)

While the website was frozen as of Friday, no longer updating with breaking Bruce news — like from his new world tour, which began Feb. 1 in Tampa — the magazine will publish a blowout final issue, Phillips said. Its popular merch shop will remain open until its current inventory is sold out.

The driving force of the magazine was a commitment to the idealistic thruline of the Boss’s music: Allegiance to the working stiff, the little guy, everyone who ever felt stuck in a dead-end town and never got the good fortune to make it out.

That is, the kind of person who can’t usually drop five grand for floor seats.

But that’s the reality Springsteen fans faced last year, when tickets for his latest tour went on sale. It was the final straw for Backstreets.

» READ MORE: Bruce Springsteen fans shocked by high ticket prices for upcoming U.S. arena tour

“We would not be able to cover this tour with the drive and sense of purpose with which we’ve operated continuously since 1980,” Phillips wrote in his editorial. “That determination came with a quickening sense that we’d reached the end of an era.”

It’s a damn shame.

“Six months after the onsales, we still faced this three-part predicament: These are concerts that we can hardly afford; that many of our readers cannot afford; and that a good portion of our readership has lost interest in as a result,” Phillips wrote.

The magazine was always a step out of time. Social media has obliterated the need for a Bruce Springsteen hotline headquartered above an Irish bar in D.C. (They have since moved.) But with nearly 170,000 subscribers — and 91 back issues — Backstreets was the online hub for all-things Boss, from set lists and tour news, to Shore dispatches and in-depth interviews. Fans relied on its ticket exchange, which will also stay open for a short time.

It leaves a legacy far beyond any normal fanzine.

Backstreets was founded in 1980 by music journalist Charles Cross — he’d later write a respected biography on Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain — who passed out issues after a legendary show at the Seattle Coliseum. From a few hundred copies of a newsletter, it quickly grew into a glossy mag, which often came out quarterly, with lengthy articles and photo spreads. Phillips took over in 1993, moving the headquarters to D.C. and then Chapel Hill, N.C. Wherever it went, die-hard fans, like pilgrims, would knock on the door just to look around. For his part, Phillips was instrumental in organizing the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection, which became the basis for the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University.

In a statement to Variety and other publications, Springsteen manager Jon Landau expressed sadness over the closing.

“We are very sorry to hear the news of Backstreets closing and want to thank Chris Phillips for his 30 years of dedication on behalf of Springsteen fans everywhere,” he said.

Springsteen fans aren’t wide-eyed naifs simply shocked that an international tour helmed by one of the world’s richest musicians would be slightly more expensive than a night out at the Stone Pony. But the Boss’s entire persona is built on a contract with fans — that they, too, are an integral part of these shows.

He’s 50 years past ever having to worry about making the rent. But he’s always been able to voice that pain of it. That’s what’s drawn those of us who never got out of Dodge. His snarky reply to concerned fans last summer was a blow that, for Backstreets, amounted to a crisis of faith.

“I know it was unpopular with some fans,” Springsteen told Rolling Stone about the sky-high prices. “But if there’s any complaints on the way out, you can have your money back.”

Backstreets was a joyous start to a career that too often doesn’t hold a lot of joy. My job description mainly consisted of mailing merchandise and answering the phones, spending hours every day commiserating and kvetching with fans from all over the world, who would call in to talk about the Boss.

Fandoms have the tendency to become vast social ecosystems where the object of worship can do no wrong. Of course, everyone at Backstreets was a Springsteen fan, but they weren’t afraid to call it like they saw it.

They always held that line in recent years, even as Springsteen and his management granted them unprecedented access. Despite people thinking I was one phone call away from the Boss when I worked there, Backstreets always operated independently.

I’d like it to be that we blurred the line between fan effort and professional publication: to cover someone like Springsteen, we insisted on solid musical journalism, high editorial standards, honest writing (which often meant not toning down enthusiasm in order to appear cool or objective), and professional photography — while never losing sight of the connections and community that have given meaning to it all on the listeners’ side of the equation.”

It means something, still, that they’re able to walk away. May the Boss take notice.