As the time approached 10:30 Tuesday night — nearly three hours after Bruce Springsteen had marched onstage at Inglewood’s Kia Forum alongside 18 of his musical comrades — the 76-year-old rock legend told the crowd he hadn’t intended to be there.
“This is a tour that we never planned,” he said. “The E Street Band is here with you tonight because we need to feel your hope and your strength. And we want to bring some hope and bring some strength for you.” It wasn’t impossible to believe him.
After a two-year trek that finally wrapped last summer amid the release of a massive box set and a splashy Hollywood biopic, Springsteen might’ve been expected to spend 2026 counting his money and his accolades. Yet the way…
Tag Archive: Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen is out to save America with rock and roll. On Friday night, in a Moda Center packed with screaming, singing fans, it felt like he might just do it.
At 7:30 p.m., long lines still snaked around the Rose Quarter. So it was about 10 minutes after the planned start time that Springsteen and the E Street Band took the stage for the second stop of their Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour.
It was the only hiccup in what became a high-intensity all-American political-musical-spiritual experience for the rapturous crowd.
The show began with a thesis statement. “The America that I love, the America that I’ve written about for 50 years, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty around the world is…
Before a single note of music was played at the opening night of the 2026 Land of Hope and Dreams Tour, it was clear this wasn’t going to be a typical Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert. In a break from decades of tradition, the band walked onto the stage in total darkness, visible to the crowd only in hazy silhouette. Springsteen came out last, and addressed the capacity crowd at the Target Center in Minneapolis, speaking much like he did at the city’s No Kings rally a few days earlier.
“I want to begin the night with a prayer for our men and women overseas,” he said. “We pray for their safe return. The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock & roll in dangerous…
What makes a great Springsteen concert is deeply subjective and often tied to what we bring to the occasion ourselves: who went with us (my future husband!); when we saw it (the day after graduation!); how long have we been looking forward to it (finally, after 11 years the E Street Band is reuniting!).
What makes for a thrilling Springsteen concert is perhaps more definable. An element of the unexpected plays a significant role, and for those who see many shows and tours, getting songs in the set that we’ve never witnessed before. Some of the thrill lies in the risk the artist takes in playing material that’s not battle-hardened; we feel rewarded by the chances they’ve taken on us.
It’s in this context of thrilling that a night like…
Bruce Springsteen Solo Acoustic
Any reasonable interpretation of Bruce Springsteens disparate activities in the year 1995 could only lead one to conclude that he had reached a point where he didn’t know what the hell he wanted to do or where he wanted to go musically. That is, until the release of The Ghost of Tom Joad. Suddenly, everything came into focus and boy did he lock in. One might even say he never let go.
The Joad tour began in late 1995, crossed much of 1996, and was extended again into the first half of 1997, which included a ten-show Australian run and this fine fifth and final show in Sydney. Springsteen stayed on the road for two simple reasons: he immensely enjoyed the solo experience and the subject matter he was performing…
Sony Music Japan has continued its popular series of 7-inch SACD reissues with a 50th anniversary edition of Bruce Springsteen’s seminal Born to Run. The 3CD set features a new DSD remaster of the original album on stereo hybrid SACD (playable on all CD players) along with The Boss’ Greenvale, New York concert of December 12, 1975 on 2 Blu-spec CDs. The CW Post College Post Dome concert featured most of the songs from Born to Run including “Thunder Road,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” “Backstreets,” “She’s the One,” “Jungleland,” and, of course, the title track. (The concert also yielded Springsteen’s now-classic take on “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” which was released as a single nearly a decade later, in 1985.) The concert was issued in 2021 on…
2025 mix by Jon Altschiller.
As we enter 2026, who could have imagined the Bruce Springsteen Live Archive series would be entering its twelfth year? The first show in the series, Apollo Theater, March 9, 2012, was released in November 2014; remarkably, 100 more have followed, expanding Springsteen’s live recording canon into territory once exclusive to the Grateful Dead.
Tours from 1975 on are represented in that 100, with many covered in depth. Frustratingly to all, a few gaps remain, limited by technical challenges (#freetherisingtour) and tape availability. But the Archive series is open-ended: new sources and playback breakthroughs remain ever possible.
For this year’s holiday release, we revisit…
The 2012-2013 Wrecking Ball tour marked the start of the current incarnation of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. It was the first without late, great founding members Danny Federici and Clarence Clemons, and the tour served in part as a eulogy to those fallen heroes.
The passing of Phantom Dan and the Big Man also triggered major changes on stage: Wrecking Ball featured an exponential expansion of the E Street Band, ushering in a horn section, backing singers, and a percussionist — a blueprint still in use when Springsteen returned to the road in 2023 and retained through the last concert in Milan this past July.
Given how many new musicians were involved, it’s remarkable that the 2012-13 tour…
After touring solo for Devils & Dust in 2005 and stomping across stages with the Seeger Sessions Band in 2006, Bruce Springsteen’s 2007 tour with the E Street Band was a welcome return to regularly scheduled programming.
The trek was appealingly normal, in that it was simply a run of shows in support of Bruce and the band’s excellent new album Magic, released in late September. The result was more akin to outings behind Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) and The River (1980) because that’s what artists did/do when they drop a new album. No bigger occasion or overarching circumstances. No multi-night residencies. Just straight up doing the job. One might think the same for 2012 with the release of Wrecking Ball, but that marked…
Nebraska occupies a pivotal place in Bruce Springsteen’s catalogue, but for some that has never been enough. Ever since the legend of Electric Nebraska – Nebraska’s band-recorded alter ego – emerged, fans have wanted to unpick the knotty relationship between Nebraska and Born in the USA and hear electrified E Street versions of this sombre acoustic album.
As recently as June 2025, Springsteen was denying Electric Nebraska even existed – and nothing appeared on the recent, epic Tracks II set – but the mythical album is finally here, thanks to the deus ex machina of Deliver Me From Nowhere, a Bruce biopic that focuses on his angsty wrestling match between artistry and commerce (spoiler alert: he could have both).
Bruce Springsteen began headlining arenas in the northeast as far back as October 1976 when he gigged two nights at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. He returned there for four concerts on the Darkness tour, and hit Madison Square Garden and Nassau Coliseum, too, then yet again in late 1980 on the River tour along with various regional Gardens and Civic Centers.
However, Springsteen wouldn’t play an arena show in his home state of New Jersey until July 1981 because, until then it didn’t have one. When the Brendan Byrne Arena opened in East Rutherford, Bruce and the E Street Band christened the future home of the Nets and Devils with a sold-out, six-show stand.
The new building already made this summer…
After 29 months, 6 distinct legs, and 130 concerts across practically every corner of Europe and North America, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band finally wrapped up their world tour Thursday evening at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in Milan, Italy.
The setlist was largely standard for this final leg of the tour until the very end when Springsteen strapped his guitar back on after typical show closer “Chimes of Freedom,” and called out, “Key of B, boys. Key of B.” He was instructing them to break into John Fogerty’s 1975 rock anthem “Rockin’ All Over the World,” which is known to most European audiences thanks to Status Quo’s 1977 cover.
“Rockin’ All Over the World” has been in Springsteen’s live repertoire with the E Street Band going all the way back to the 1981 River…
Bruce and the E Street Band perform a 28-song set on night one in Milan. Highlights: “Atlantic City” rotates in. 2025 additions “Rainmaker,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” (performed solo acoustic), and the show-closing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” all appear.
…Little Steven Van Zandt returned to the concert stage with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on Monday, June 30, at the San Siro Stadium in Milan. Van Zandt had appendicitis surgery in San Sebastian, Spain, the rocker posted on June 23.
The E Street Band traditionally enters the stage one by one before The Boss takes the stage. In Milan, Van Zandt came out holding hands with Springsteen at the beginning of the show before the band launched into “No Surrender.”
The antepenultimate date of the Land of Hope and Dreams Tour brought Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band to its penultimate stop, concluding the year’s trilogy of shows in Germany with a trip to Gelsenkirchen’s Veltins-Arena.
Slotted in-between that sensational night in San Sebastián and the long anticipated finale shows in Milan’s San Siro, this one may have flown under the radar for many. Add to that the fact Springsteen and the E Street Band were still without Little Steven Van Zandt following his emergency appendectomy, would this be one where everybody in the house had a point to prove?
While the thunderstorm on June 24th made for a much looser performance than we’re used to on the 2023-2025 World Tour, expectations…
Bruce and the E Street Band perform a 32-song set on night two in San Sebastian.
…Springsteen and the E Street Band had already included the tour debut of “Prove It All Night” when rain overtook San Sebastian, Spain during “House of a Thousand Guitars.”
They ended up waiting 35 minutes for the skies to clear. Then Springsteen and company went on a tear as they played four more songs for the first time on this tour. Included were “Growin’ Up” from 1973’s Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ; and “Darlington County,” “Working on the Highway” and “I’m on Fire” from 1984’s Born in the U.S.A. “Prove It All Night” originally appeared on 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town.
The Reale Arena stop on Springsteen’s…
Bruce and the E Street Band perform a 29-song set in Prague.
Highlights: Tour premiere of “Summertime Blues” (last performed in 2016; written by Eddie Cochran and Jerry Capehart, and famously recorded by Cochran).
“Human Touch” returns to the set; “My Love Will Not Let You Down” and “Darkness on the Edge of Town” rotate in.
2025 additions “Rainmaker,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” (performed solo acoustic), and the show-closing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” all appear.
“The River” is dedicated to Ted Brych, a fan from Toms River, New Jersey, who passed away in February.
Bruce and the E Street Band perform a 27-song set on night one in San Sebastian.
Highlights: “Darkness on the Edge of Town” rotates in. 2025 additions “Rainmaker,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” (performed solo acoustic), and the show-closing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” all appear.
Bruce Springsteen – Lead vocal, electric/acoustic guitars, harmonica; Roy Bittan – piano, keyboards; Nils Lofgren – electric/acoustic guitars, backing vocal; Garry Tallent – bass, backing vocal; Stevie Van Zandt – electric/ acoustic guitars, mandolin, backing vocal; Max Weinberg – drums; Jake Clemons – tenor saxophone, percussion; Charlie Giordano – organ, keyboards, accordion; Soozie Tyrell – violin, acoustic guitar, percussion
In 1988, Bruce Springsteen performed in what was then East Berlin. Invited by the FDJ, the East German youth organisation, he took to the stage at the Weißensee cycling track in front of an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people — far more than the 160,000 tickets originally issued. It was billed as a concert in solidarity with Nicaragua, but Bruce was careful to remain apolitical. Speaking in German, he told the crowd: “I’m not here to represent or support any government. I’ve come to play rock and roll in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down.”
Roll forward to 2025, and Bruce is back in Berlin — but this time, it’s political. Since the opening nights of this European leg in Manchester, Springsteen has been vocal about his…
The Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band concert at Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 18, 2025, was part of the “Land of Hope and Dreams Tour”. “Trapped” returns to the set; “Atlantic City” rotates in. 2025 additions “Rainmaker,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” (performed solo acoustic), and the show-closing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” all appear.
Recorded by John Cooper, Mixed by Jon Altschiller, Additional Engineering: Danielle Warman, Nic Coolidge, and Allison Leah, Mix Advisor: Rob Lebret, Post Production: Brad Serling and Arya Jha, Art Design: Michelle Holme, Cover Photo: Rob DeMartin, Tour Director: George Travis, Manager: Jon Landau
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform a 27-song set in Marseille.
Highlights: “Twist and Shout” returns to the set; “No Surrender” and “Bobby Jean” rotate in.
2025 additions “Rainmaker,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” (performed solo acoustic), and the show-closing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” all appear.
…Springsteen and the E Street Band brought their Land of Hope and Dreams Tour to the Orange Vélodrome in Marseille, France on Saturday, May 31 with a new twist.
A cover of the Isley Brothers and Beatles classic “Twist and Shout,” a first for the tour. A fan held up a sign with the word “resist” on it near the front of the stage during the song, according…