bruce springsteen tour 2013 london

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Bruce Springsteen, Hard Rock Calling, London, June 30, 2013

In case we need reminding, the last time Bruce Springsteen played Hard Rock Calling – at Hyde Park, last July – a curfew was broken, the PA switched off, and Springsteen and a guesting Paul McCartney were silenced mid-song. It seems unlikely there would be a repeat of such shenanigans this year.

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For starters, Hard Rock Calling have left leafy Hyde Park and relocated a site that resembles a car park some yomping distance from the Olympic stadium. The only signs of habitation are rows and rows of empty, new-build apartment blocks stacked up along one side of the festival perimeter. With no nearby residents to grumble about noise levels the sound, at least, is loud and clear. The main arena is concreted, with a covering of Astroturf in the middle. A short distance away, in a grassy, landscaped area of gently rolling hills and dips that recalls Teletubbyland, you might catch The Flaming Groovies tearing through a ferocious version of “Shake Some Action” in the dusty afternoon heat.

Meanwhile, across on the main stage, Alabama Shakes are in full throttle, delivering among many terrific moments an amazing version of “Hold On” that, even at 3pm in a half-empty area, carries a formidable punch. They’re followed by The Black Crowes , who conjure up an hour’s worth of loose, digressive jams culminating in a terrific take on “Hard To Handle” which spins off into “Hush” half way through. Highlights? Plenty, but Adam MacDougall enveloped in a cloud of smoke essaying some rambling keyboard choogle, the overheard camera shots of the Persian rugs the band play on, or a glimpse of Rich Robinson’s guitar pedals, emblazoned with the words “Hippy Machine”, all figure highly.

Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band arrive just after 7pm, and play for a little over 3 hours. In many ways, it’s a curious set – although I admit I’m struggling to work out what this current European leg of the Wrecking Ball tour is about. This tour has been on the road for 15 months now – twice the length of the previous Working On A Dream tour, which ran from April to November 2009. It’s a stretch to think that he’s still in a promotion cycle for the album – out of tonight’s 29 songs, only four are from Wrecking Ball itself. Certainly, the rump of material from the early part of the set comes from Nebraska – including a terrific “Reasons To Believe” recast as Canned Heat-style boogie, and a fiery take on “Atlantic City”. So what is he doing? He starts taking audience requests conspicuously early on in the show – the fourth and fifth songs played, “Johnny 99” and “Reasons To Believe”, come from placards held up by the audience. You might wonder if there’s actually any shape to these shows, or if Springsteen and the band are simply turning up, walking on stage and seeing what happens.

But the thing about this run of dates so far has been full album performances – which Springsteen has been doing since the closing stages of the Working For A Dream tour in America, but not elsewhere. In fact, out of the 21 shows he’s played so far in this run, nine have included full album performances of either Born To Run (twice), Darkness On The Edge Of Town (three times) or Born In The USA (four times). Tonight, we get Born In The USA – which he also played the previous night in Paris.

Arguably, Born In The USA feels as resonant today as it did when it was released in 1984 – the hardships endured by servicemen returning from war, a bleak recessionary landscape, government mismanagement, corporate greed. It also affords a number of rousing sing-along moments – the title track, “No Surrender”, “Glory Days” – which work tremendously well in the convivial atmosphere of a Springsteen show. Even the unsettling, predatory “I’m On Fire” assumes an unexpected celebratory tone tonight.

I guess this batch of dates has an element of “this one’s for the fans”. We are used to seeing Springsteen in a number of different guises – the preacher, the polemicist, or increasingly playing up to the band’s advancing age. But tonight the vibe seems very much about playing for the simple pleasure of it. During The Rising ’s “Waitin’ On A Sunny Day”, Springsteen raised onto his shoulders a young crowd member to sing onstage. The audience cheers whenever Jake Clemons plays a solo. A number of Nils Lofgren-style black pork pie hats are in evidence. This is Bruce conducting what amounts to a backyard sing-along round the barbecue, but on a far grander scale. We are in his extended family, everyone’s invited.

He closes the show with an acoustic “ My Lucky Day ” from Working On A Dream. An unusual choice – no “Thunder Road”, or “Twist And Shout”, which have been the most frequent closing songs played on this leg of the tour. Apparently, he decided to play it on a whim, after seeing an audience member with a tattoo. “That’s a nice tattoo you’ve got there,” he says. “That’s worth a spontaneous song on its own. I run into people all over the place with tattoos. I don’t have one myself but I appreciate them on other people. Anyway, this one’s for you, kid.” As good a reason as any, presumably.

Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band played:

Shackled And Drawn

Prove It All Night

Reason to Believe

Atlantic City

Wrecking Ball

Death To My Hometown

Born In The USA

Darlington County

Working On The Highway

Downbound Train

I’m On Fire

No Surrender

I’m Goin’ Down

Dancing In The Dark

My Hometown

Waiting On A Sunny Day

Lonesome Day

Light Of Day

Born to Run

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

American Land

My Lucky Day

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner .

pic credit: Andy Willsher

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Born In the U.S.A. Live: London 2013 (Video Album)

January 14, 2014 13 Songs, 1 hour, 4 minutes ℗ 2014 Bruce Springsteen

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• June 10, 2013 Setlist

Bruce Springsteen Setlist at MTV Studios, London, England

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• May 31 2013 Stadio Euganeo Padua, Italy Add time Add time
• Jun 03 2013 Stadio Giuseppe Meazza Milan, Italy Add time Add time
• Jun 10 2013 Agit8 2013 This Setlist London, England Add time Add time
• Jun 15 2013 Wembley Stadium London, England Start time: 7:20 PM 7:20 PM
• Jun 18 2013 Hampden Park Glasgow, Scotland Start time: 7:25 PM 7:25 PM

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band to tour Europe in 2013

Bruce Springsteen's ongoing quest to stay out of his house as much as possible continues, with the news that he is bringing the E Street Band back to Europe next summer for another leg of his tour to promote the Wrecking Ball album .

Springsteen begins his European swing on 26 May in Munich, with three UK stadium shows scheduled – 15 June at Wembley Stadium, 18 June at Hampden Park in Glasgow and 20 June at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry. There are 12 spare days before the Wembley show, then three more before Glasgow, opening the possibility that further dates may be announced. Tickets for those shows go on sale on 7 December. He returns to the UK on July 20 to play Belfast King's Hall, with tickets on sale from 6 December.

This summer, Springsteen played 33 Wrecking Ball shows in Europe, to a rapturous response, and playing some of the longest sets of his career, stretching towards four hours. However, his London appearance – at the Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park – was blighted by low sound levels, and by promoters pulling the plug when he overran , despite the fact Paul McCartney was on stage with him at the time. E Street Band guitarist Steven van Zandt suggested Britain had become a "police state" on Twitter. The Guardian suggested he simply play Wembley next time he visited London, to ensure adequate sound.

However, the option of Hyde Park was not open to Springsteen this time. Live Nation – the promoter of Hyde Park events, including Hard Rock Calling, for more than a decade – decided to stop using the space for concerts in October. Live Nation told the Royal Parks Agency, which is in charge of events in Hyde Park, that its tender process for promoting shows there was "flawed". It is also believed to have highlighted the noise restrictions imposed at the request of residents near the park.

Springsteen is currently taking a winter break from touring after finishing his most recent US jaunt in Buffalo, New York. The Wrecking Ball tour resumes in Atlanta, Georgia, on 18 March, three days after a special live performance at SXSW in Austin, Texas. This year, Springsteen gave the keynote address at the event.

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Bruce Springsteen live in London: the heartland hero remains firmly at his majestic peak

Hyde Park, July 6: The Boss conjures magic and mayhem as he delivers a career-spanning set for the first of his two sold out London shows

Deep in conversation with his close friend Barack Obama in the lockdown podcast Renegades , Bruce Springsteen laid out the very mission statement behind his epic live shows. “I’m going to give my best to bring out the best in you, and I’m going to send you home with a sense of community and a set of values that may sustain you past the concert. I always joke that I want to come onstage and change your life, except it’s not really a joke that is my purpose at night.”

Backed by the infamous E Street Band, the impossibly youthful 73-year-old wastes absolutely no time in getting to work with that blueprint during the first of his two sold out shows at Hyde Park. Taking to the stage to rapturous applause and adoring football chants of ‘Bruce’, he launches into rabble rousing anthem ‘No Surrender’ in front of a 65,000 strong crowd, setting the tone for a goliath three-hour set with few intervals for formalities or small talk.

The Boss might have recently courted some playful criticism from Paul McCartney about being to blame for relentlessly long sets – but Springsteen’s infamous work ethic shows no signs of waning in his later years. Perhaps more impressively, some of his latest material proves just how potent he remains as a songwriter. The defiant 2020 anthem of ‘Ghosts’ already stands up in the set alongside his all time classics as he belts out a husky, gravelly battle cry of, “I hear the sound of your guitar / Coming from the mys tic far”.

Throughout the night Springsteen shows just how masterful a performer he remains, striking the perfect balance of light and shade, newer material is quickly offset with anthems like ‘The Promised Land’ during which he takes his first steps towards fans who have eagerly waited at the barrier since the gates opened, pumping that indelible sound of the harmonica into the microphone. Waltzing into the front rows and leaning into the crowd, magic and mayhem is triggered in the most heartwarming fashion as he hands a young girl his plectrum.

At their very core these are anthems of hope and dreams, and in a post-pandemic world, the music feels more vital than ever before. Springsteen, after all, is a master when it comes to distilling the notion of the American dream and how it’s buried within everyday societal heroes, dispatching effortless lines of longing and escapism: “Working all day in my daddy’s garage / Driving all night chasing some mirage / Pretty soon little girl I’m gonna take charge.”

Though the setlist has largely remained unusually static for Springsteen across the tour so far, The Boss has recently started dropping a few surprises into the mix – and who can blame him on a 31-date European tour. ‘Will he won’t he’ murmurs and speculation had been rippling across the crowd and surrounding Mayfair bars pre-show following recent airings of classics like ‘The River’ and ‘Downbound Train’, making it all more special as the timeless, goosebump summoning harmonica of ‘The River’ washes over the crowd, signalling a set highlight.

As the setting sun begins to kiss the London skyline, Springsteen shields his eyes with a knowing smile and rolls into ‘My Hometown’ which triggers a mass singalong. Exploring the unbreakable bond of home, small town life, growing up and dreams of getting out, it’s not hard to see why the ballad strikes such a poignant note. The Boss triumphantly raises his fist into the sky like a post-fight Rocky Balboa to soak up the moment.

It feels like everyone here today has their own Springsteen story. One fan in the crowd proudly tells NME , “I’ve seen Bruce over thirty times, from Wembley in 1981 to the original ‘Born In The USA Tour’, the music has so many memories attached to it through the years and I’m here today with my daughters making more great memories with them.” It means just as much for the array of support artists here today as well, with long time fan Frank Turner saying: “I will be taking a plain black marker and drawing a line right through the top item on my bucket list.”

If the set hadn’t delivered enough heavy hitting material already, the final flurry would be enough to make even the most casual fan go weak at the knees. Bruce opens the floodgates for a mighty stream of classics like ‘Badlands’ and ‘Thunder Road’ before coming back for an impossibly stronger encore with anti-Vietnam war anthem ‘Born In The USA’, followed by all time classics ‘Born To Run’, ‘Glory Days’ and ‘Dancing In The Dark’.

After a heartwarming rendition of ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze Out’ accompanied with video montage paying tribute to lost members of the E Street Band in saxophonist Clarence Clemons and keyboard player Danny Federici, you wonder what else Springsteen has up his sleeve.

He comes back as a solitary figure for a soul-stirring closer of ‘I’ll See You In My Dreams’, and it’s emotional stuff cutting to the very fabric of life. A force of personality like no other, if Springsteen’s ultimate goal really is to change lives by night, then it’s mission accomplished here. Punctuated with lessons of life, love and loss, he’s hit another home run at Hyde Park.

Bruce Springsteen played:

‘No Surrender’ ‘Ghosts’ ‘Prove It All Night’ ‘Letter to You’ ‘The Promised Land’ ‘Out in the Street’ ‘Darlington County’ ‘Working on the Highway’ ‘Kitty’s Back’ ‘Nightshift’ (Commodores cover) ‘Mary’s Place’ ‘My Hometown’ ‘The River’ ‘Last Man Standing’ ‘Backstreets’ ‘Because the Night’ ‘She’s the One’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ ‘The Rising’ ‘Badlands’ ‘Thunder Road’ ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ Born to Run’ ‘Bobby Jean’ ‘Glory Days’ ‘Dancing in the Dark’ ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out’ ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’

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The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, Playing Sold Out Shows at Chase Center Tonight and Sunday

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are in San Francisco for shows tonight and Sunday, and in their honor, the city has temporarily renamed Warriors Way, aka South Street, in the band's honor.

There was a dedication ceremony on Wednesday afternoon for the street sign, which says "Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band" and hangs just below signs for Warriors Way outside the Chase Center. As the Chronicle reports , the signs will stay up through the weekend.

Meet us at Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band and Warriors Way 🚦 Go behind the scenes on the production of our custom @springsteen street signs we made with @SFMTA_Muni pic.twitter.com/0mTK9o2NbN — Chase Center (@ChaseCenter) March 28, 2024

Springsteen and his band just relaunched their North American tour earlier this month in Phoenix, doing makeup concert dates that were originally scheduled for December. The 74-year-old Springsteen had to call a halt to the tour last fall due to a bout of peptic ulcer disease , and the new tour dates are in two waves, one now through April, and another in August and September.

He and the band are also taking two nights off between shows in the same city — here they will take Friday and Saturday off before doing another show Sunday, and they'll do the same next week in Los Angeles.

While both Chase Center shows are sold out, there some tickets available on resale sites like StubHub, and Ticketmaster has some "verified resale" seats that appear to mostly be behind the stage — but they start at $60.

The E Street Band consists of guitarist Steven Van Zandt (also of Sopranos fame), guitarist Nils Lofgren, drummer Max Weinberg, bassist Garry W. Tallent, keyboardist Roy Bittan, and saxophonist Jake Clemons, who is the nephew of late saxophonist Clarence Clemons.

In related news, we learned yesterday that The Bear actor Jeremy Allen White has been cast to play Springsteen in an upcoming biopic, provisionally titled Deliver Me From Nowhere . As the Guardian reported , the film, based on Warren Zane's book of the same name, centers on the 1982 making of Springsteen's Nebraska album.

Top image: Bruce Springsteen (R) and Max Weinberg of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform on stage at Pechanga Arena on March 25, 2024 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Daniel Knighton/Getty Images)

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Music | chilly storm front escorts rain, snow across the bay area, music | review: bruce springsteen delivers incredible evening of music for fans, bruce springsteen rocks chase center in san francisco.

Jetlag? What jetlag?

Bruce Springsteen certainly seemed no worse for wear after making two quick cross-country flights over the last few days before playing what turned out to be a dynamite show at Chase Center in San Francisco on Thursday.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer performed Monday in San Diego then zoomed back East to make a guest appearance (with fellow troubadour Maggie Rogers) at a show by country star Zach Bryan at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Wednesday night.

Then it was right back to the West Coast in time to play the first of two sold-out shows at the home of the Golden State Warriors.

The next gig is on Sunday, which gives Springsteen time to — oh, I don’t know — perhaps fly to Kauai for fish tacos before returning to Chase for Night 2.

And if he does decide to do just that, well, you can rest assured that he’ll still deliver the goods for Bay Area fans on Easter Sunday.

That’s why he’s The Boss.

The 74-year-old Springsteen was in nothing short of legendary form as he led his mighty E Street Band through a 29-song show that absolutely captivated the approximately 16,500 fans in attendance for three hours.

He’d draw from a wide selection of his songbook, touching upon 11 of his studio albums. There were a few debuts for this 2024 tour — which, granted, is only a few dates old at this point — as well as the favorites fans can pretty much expect to hear at every Springsteen show these days.

Backed by 17 people onstage — including a versatile horn section and excellent backing vocalists — the bandleader opened the show right around 7:45 p.m. with “Something in the Night,” one of five songs that he’d pull from the classic 1978 platter “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”

The song — which was being played live for the first time on this tour — proved to be a bit of a mellow starter, but things would quickly heat up as The Boss turned to 2002’s “The Rising” for a powerful version of “Lonesome Day.”

The next two offerings, “Ghosts” and “Two Hearts,” were both solid, but the show reached a whole new level when Springsteen and company unleashed “Prove It All Night.” The tune, another “Darkness on the Edge of Town” standout, featured the first prominent sax work from Jake Clemons (who is the nephew of the late E Street legend Clarence Clemons) as well as some really aggressive and muscular guitar playing from the bandleader himself.

They’d keep the party rolling in high gear with the defiant “Born in the U.S.A.” anthem “No Surrender” before thrilling the audience with the tour debut of “Atlantic City,” delivering a full-band version that shared the lyrics — and not much else — with the stark solo recording originally found on 1982’s “Nebraska.”

Springsteen’s voice was on point throughout the night, showing no signs of the medical condition that originally forced him to postpone these Chase shows — which were originally scheduled for last December — as well as other dates. The star did bring up the subject about 80 minutes into the show, which was first time he paused to really talk to the crowd all evening.

“My belly hurt so bad, I couldn’t sing,” explained Springsteen, who underwent treatment for peptic ulcer disease. “Every time I went to sing, my belly ached. When I went to do anything, my belly ached. Then it ached some more. So, we couldn’t make it. But I’m glad to be back tonight.”

The last third of the main set was all A-list material, as the singer rolled through “Backstreets,” “Because the Night,” “She’s the One,” “Wrecking Ball,” “The Rising” and “Badlands” before closing, some 130 minutes after he started the show, with the always-popular “Thunder Road.”

The 18 musicians would take their well-deserved bows, but then, instead of leaving the stage, it was right back to business as they rolled through a generous encore highlighted by “Land of Hope and Dreams” (another tour debut), “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and, of course, “Born to Run.”

“San Francisco!” Springsteen exclaimed as the encore drew to a close. “I want you to go home tonight and then I want you to wake up tomorrow morning and I want you to tell everybody that you see that you that you’ve just seen the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, earth-shocking, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, earth-quaking, love-making, Viagra-taking, history-making legendary E Street Band.”

Consider it done, Boss.

Setlist: 1. “Something in the Night” 2. “Lonesome Day” 3. “Ghosts” 4. “Two Hearts” 5. “Prove It All Night” 6. “No Surrender” 7. “Atlantic City” 8. “Death to My Hometown” 9. “Letter to You” 10. “The Promised Land” 11. “Hungry Heart” 12. “Spirit in the Night” 13. “Nightshift” 14. “Racing in the Street” 15. “Last Man Standing” 16. “Backstreets” 17. “Because the Night” 18. “She’s the One” 19. “Wrecking Ball” 20. “The Rising” 21. “Badlands” 22. “Thunder Road” Encore: 23. “Land of Hope and Dreams” 24. “Born to Run” 25. “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” 26. “Bobby Jean” 27. “Dancing in the Dark” 28. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” Encore 2: 29. “I’ll See You in My Dreams”

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Bruce Springsteen’s Tour Resumption Is Its Own Kind of Promised Land: Concert Review

An early tour stop in San Diego, on the way to his rescheduled L.A. dates in April, shows that for Springsteen, singing about the souls of the departed and throwing a party for the living are easily balanced twin tasks.

By Chris Willman

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Most of the really essential rituals of American life — religious observances; Halloween and New Year’s Eve; opening day in baseball — are cyclical, endlessly repeatable experiences, independent from individuals or cults of personality. But to that list, a lot of us would add the ritual, stretching past 50 years now, of Bruce Springsteen in concert. And as the world found out last year, that guy can take a sick day. So, as if Springsteen tours weren’t already irregular enough, the fresh resumption of this U.S. tour, after a six-month timeout, has an extra resonance.

At San Diego’s Pechanga Arena Monday night, Springsteen and the E Street Band were three gigs into a restart of the tour that was so rudely interrupted by his peptic ulcer last September, after an opening (or reopening) night March 19 in Phoenix, followed by a show in Las Vegas March 22. Some of these audiences have felt the paucity of Springsteen concerts in the past, not future uncertainty. Springsteen hadn’t played Vegas since 2002 when he finally returned last week. In San Diego, the gap had been mysteriously far longer: He had last been in the city to do a show with the E Street Band in 1981, and last performed in San Diego in any capacity — as a solo artist — in ’96.

Springsteen didn’t directly bring up his illness or the postponement of the last leg of the tour when he talked to the audience at the Pechanga Arena, but he did address the absence that’d been on so many local fans’ minds over the last four decades.

Why hadn’t he gotten back to San Diego sooner? Maybe because he felt it’d be too on-the-nose, having name-checked the city so famously in “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”? Naturally, when that nearly eight-minute rouser did come up as an encore number Sunday, it got some special treatment for the occasion. Standing on the ramp that extended into the GA section with members of his band, Springsteen halted the song for a 21-second pause following the line “I know a pretty little place in Southern California, down San Diego way,” which, as a prompt for 13,500 people to go wild, probably could been extended a couple of minutes longer.

It’s a little bit surprising that Springsteen had not been back sooner just in that his last SD gig back in 1981 had also been at this same facility, then known as the San Diego Sports Arena. And the place maintains just a little bit of the old-school feel of his former favorite locale further north, the L.A. Sports Arena, which he had dubbed “The Dump That Jumps” before closing it down with a series of final concerts there in 2016. Speaking of things that will all seem funny, it may seem odd to point out the artist’s nostalgia for something as unsentimental as arenas, but he will tend to play the older of those venues when he’s coming to a city with more than one, as he did in San Diego and will when he shortly hits Inglewood’s Forum (his distaste for Staples/Crypto.com Arena being legendary). He’s got a thing for things that have escaped the wrecking ball; the Pechanga Arena has been upgraded above dump status, but on a night like this, it did jump, too.

The faithful haven’t been sure whether to call his 2024 tour (which has a lot of rescheduled North American shows bookending a long summer trip to Europe) a continuation of the aborted 2023 U.S. tour, or something that counts as a new one. It does affect how songs are counted or not counted as “tour premieres” in the inevitable collation of setlists — which really boils it down to an especially first-world problem. The artist himself had a point of view on that when asked about it on the E Street Radio satelite channel earlier this month, saying, “There will be some things from last year’s tour that will hold over; some of my basic themes of mortality and life and those things, you know, I’m going to keep set… (But) I think I’m gonna move around the other parts of the set a lot more, so there’ll be a much wider song selection going on. So we’re looking at it like it’s a little bit of the old tour, but we’re looking at it like a new tour.”

Looking at what’s gone from last year, “Kitty’s Back” is no longer back, and “Glory Days” and “Out in the Street” are also out, along with semi-regular staples like “The E Street Shuffle,” “Candy’s Room” and “Johnny 99.” But since the show still clocks in at a very healthy 27 songs, spread out over about two hours and 40 minutes, additions are in place, like his 1973 debut album’s “Spirit in the Night,” which has been played at all three shows so far, after only getting two plays total in all of 2022. His cover of the Ben E. King/Aretha Franklin classic “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)” (as heard on his soul covers abum two years ago) also looks like it may be a nighty regular now, after having been bumped out of the set after a handful of appearances in February 2022. The change-ups distinct to San Diego in the fresh run of shows included his first performance of “My City of Ruins” since 2017, plus the revival of his “Detroit Medley,” which was performed only three times last year. “Death to My Hometown” and, in the encore, “Bobby Jean” also made what have recently counted as rare appearances.

What remains rock-solid from last year are the vast majority of songs a casual fan might be coming to hear, mostly from the 1973-84 era, although service is also paid to the “Rising” and “Wrecking Ball” albums and the two most recent releases that he is ostensibly touring behind, “Letter to You” and “Only the Strong Survive.” Songs that would be set-closers for anyone else are thrown in almost in random spots, until it becomes a sheer onslaught of classics. Rest assured that the show’s final stretch will allow everyone to resume ongoing internal debate over whether “Born to Run” is the quintessential rock song of all time, or whether that honor is rightly reserved by “Thunder Road.” (Team “Thunder,” here, after 49 years of consideration.)

It counts as a thunderously upbeat best-of show, in other words. But it’s an exhilarating greatest-hits show sandwiched within momentarily sobering ruminatings about death, and death’s effect on the living. Which is quite a hoagie.

Also still a staple of the show from last year is another one of those recent songs about remembering missing loved ones, “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” as a final benediction after the celebratory encore material.

On top of this, Springsteen has made some other additions to the show, whether for the entirety of the remaining tour or as recurring one-offs, that further reinforce this theme. For instance, the show no longer begins every night with “No Surrender” (which is still in the set, pushed back a bit); he’s replaced it with the brooding “Lonesome Day,” one of the 9/11-prompted songs from “The Rising.” As he thought about what kind of messaging to start these new concerts with, maybe Springsteen’s bout with illness made him realize that we all have to succumb to some surrendering now and again. More likely, it has something to do with providing an opening bookend to “I’ll See You in My Dreams” at the beginning — starting the show with an anxious response to death at the outset, so that his calming thoughts about it at the end feel like the conclusion to some kind of story.

In adding “My City of Ruins” to the set for the first time in seven years, Springsteen also used that as a bed for more of these thoughts, on top of full-band intros, extending that gospel-like ballad to 11 minutes in length — less than a third of the way into the running time. “I plan on sending you home with your feet hurting, your ass hurting, your sexual organs stimulated,” Springsteen promised during the “Ruins” spoken interlude, before getting down to business about having “a story to tell. It’s a story about yesterday and about tonight and hopefully tomorrow. It’s about hellos and goodbyes. It’s about the things that leave us and the things that remain.” After introducing the extended band (E Street Horns and E Street Choir included), he asked, “Are we missing anybody?” The crowd roared with implicit Clarence Clemons/Danny Federici appreciation. “Everybody’s missing somebody at this point,” he affirmed. “I don’t know where we go when this is all over, but I know where we remain. The only thing I can guarantee tonight is, if you’re here and we’re here, then they’re here.”

Spaced out over the better part of three hours, these reflections aren’t going to hit anyone in the crowd as heavy-handed; if anything, they’re just barely enough in making the obvious point that everyone present who’s been with him for the long haul has probably been spending more time in hospital rooms or at funerals than revving up hemi-powered drones. Fortunately, there’s a timelessness to most of the classics that transcends youth, even if some of the aspirational dreams in the early material are long since in rear-view mirrors for much of the audience. “Let the broken hearts stand as the price you’ve gotta pay”: some things can sung along with at 18 or 88.

The stage for this tour is almost hilariously basic, if you’ve been to any major superstar outings lately, and witnessed the bizarre shapes of the ramps that extend into SRO floors and practically twist around each other. Springsteen’s ramp doesn’t look to extend much more more than 15 feet into the audience, as if to dare the incoming audience to imagine how much he can do with just a minimum of thrust staging. (Honestly, we’re trying to keep this as clean as we can here.) He spent plenty of time on that modest extension, which allows plenty of room for camera angles catching the surrounding crowd, and for occasional visits from mobile band members and backup singers, without having to go so far out into the crowd that it looks like he’s, you know, overcompensating.

As is tradition, he and some of his traveling accompanists occasionally visited the rear riser, which now holds a five-man horn section, to provide eye candy for the audience watching from behind the stage. Everyone turning around to give the folks in the so-called cheap seats a thrill is especially nice when it’s timed to one of his great key changes, as it was in the instrumental bridge of the Pogues-like “Death to My Hometown.”

Memorable moments stand out almost randomly: Nils Lofgren going crazy on “Because the Night,” making up for the lack of solo time he gets as one of three guitarists by doing a whole night’s worth of shredding in one tune… Saxophonist Jake Clemons leaning on Springsteen’s shoulder during “Prove It All Night,” in what has to be a subtle but intentional inverse of his late uncle Clarence’s famous “Born to Run” cover pose… A moment when backup vocalist Curtis King joins Springsteen on the ramp during “Nightshift” for a few modest steps in unison. (Guaranteed, the only actual dance choreography of the night.)… Springsteen taking a sign from the audience and saving it for much later so that he could dedicate “Last Man Standing” to a specific fallen serviceman.

Meanwhile, here’s an advisory for anyone coming to the tour down the road: plan for traffic and invest in a watch. The tickets say 7:30 p.m., and so far on this leg, that is exactly the minute the band walks on stage. The ultra-prompt start allows Springsteen and company to prove it for what still feels like all night, yet get everyone home before the witching hour. It’s true: a benevolent boss is always looking out for everyone’s health.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band setlist, Pechanga Arena, San Diego, March 25, 2024:

Lonesome Day

Prove It All Night

No Surrender

Death to My Hometown

Letter to You

The Promised Land

My City of Ruins

Spirit in the Night

Don’t Play That Song (Ben E. King cover)

Nightshift (Commodores coer)

Mary’s Place

Last Man Standing

Backstreets

Because the Night

She’s the One

Wrecking Ball

Thunder Road

Detroit Medley

Born to Run

Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

Dancing in the Dark

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

I’ll See You in My Dreams

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