Farewell tour? As Bruce Springsteen says, he 'ain't going anywhere'

The Herald Scotland

01-06-2025

An insight into the discipline it takes to deliver a high-quality show was provided by Springsteen himself, in his autobiography Born to Run.
After his long-term saxophone player, Clarence ('The Big Man') Clemons, died in 2011, Springsteen eventually got around to auditioning Clemons's nephew, Jake, for the role. Jake, however, arrived an hour late, having got lost en route, and then said he 'sort of' knew the handful of songs Springsteen had sent him.
"Lesson number one", The Boss, evidently unimpressed, records in the book: in the E Street Band they don't 'sort of' do anything. "James Brown was my father, god and hero as bandleader. Sam Moore was also a great inspiration. At their best, these were men whose lives forbade them to f--- around with the thing that was lifting them up. On the bandstand, with their bands, they gave NO QUARTER!"
And then Springsteen wrote this: "People always asked me how the band played like it did night after night, almost murderously consistent, never stagnant and always full balls to the wall.
"There are two answers. One is they loved and respected their jobs, one another, their leader and the audience. The other is ...because I MADE them! Do not underestimate the second answer. I need Jake to understand them both".
Bruce SpringsteenNow, in 2025, he and the E Streeters – with Jake on sax – are on the road again, playing a string of 16 European dates. The shows are as high-energy and as life-affirming as they ever were. The set-lists range far and wide over Springsteen's peerless collection of great songs. The most recent, from Lille, includes No Surrender, Promised Land, The River, House of a Thousand Guitars, Letter to You, The Rising, Thunder Road, with the encores ranging from Born in the USA to Born to Run and Dancing in the Dark.
Two years ago, when the band was touring the US and Europe, there were whispers to the effect that it wouldn't be a surprise if Springsteen, then 73, were to quit life on the road.
One respected critic was bowled over by the relentless energy on display at a gig in Barcelona. Yet for how much longer, he wondered, could Springsteen and his crew pull off this trick?
As uplifting as the show was, there had been an underlying poignancy to proceedings, "a sense that this is reluctantly, defiantly, yet inevitably coming to an end. If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing the greatest rock star of our time with the greatest rock and roll band in the world, I would urge you to catch this tour when it arrives on our shores. Right now, Springsteen is undeniably still the Boss. But I have a sneaking suspicion that this tour might be him handing in his notice".
Springsteen gave such notions short shrift, telling a Philadelphia audience in August 2024: 'We've been around 50 f***ing years and we ain't quitting!' he said. 'We ain't doing no farewell tour bulls***! Jesus Christ! No farewell tour for the E Street Band! Hell no. Farewell to what? Thousands of people screaming your name? Yeah, I wanna quit that. That's it. That's all it takes. I ain't goin' anywhere.'
The current leg of the Land of Hope and Dreams tour, which kicked off with three dates at Manchester's Co-Op arena in mid-May, will cap a tour that began in February 2023. The current run of 130 dates has sold in excess of four million tickets.
At the opening date in Manchester Springsteen made headlines with an impassioned verbal assault on the Trump White House. 'In my home', he declared, 'the America I love, the America I've written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration. Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience, to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring'.
US authorities under Trump, he added, were 'persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent'. In America, the richest men 'are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world's poorest children to sickness and death ... In my country, they're taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers'.
Historic civil-rights legislation was being rolled back, he continued. Great allies were being abandoned, and leading universities were being defunded.
Springsteen quickly issued a six-track digital EP containing those words, and four songs – Land of Hope and Dreams, Long Walk Home, My City of Ruins and Bob Dylan's Chimes of Freedom – from the concert.
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Trump responded in characteristically thin-skinned fashion, saying: "This dried out 'prune' of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country". He later demanded a 'major investigation' into Springsteen, Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey and Bono, alleging that Kamala Harris, his beaten opponent last year, had broken campaign-finance law by paying the first three for their endorsements.
Springsteen, for his part, has been supported by such musicians as Neil Young, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, and Tom Morello. Bono, asked by US TV host Jimmy Kimmel for his take on the spat between Springsteen and Trump, said: 'I think there's only one 'Boss' in America'.
In a guest essay in the New York Times, Eric Alterman, author of a book about Springsteen, noted Trump's 'petty rage' at the musician for his Manchester remarks, adding: "Perhaps Mr. Trump worried that a simple, uncompromised patriotic message on offer from a man who is arguably the nation's most beloved male rock star would break through to his fans".
In Springsteen's native New Jersey, a tribute band that plays his songs had to find a new venue for a gig after the owner of the original venue cancelled, saying he was worried about Springsteen's remarks about Trump.
The European gigs by the E Street Band have been rapturously received, with Uncut magazine's reviewer, Dave Simpson, observing that Springsteen delivered "what must surely be the most politically-charged show of his career. As he stands just feet from the front rows, video screens show the singer's face furrow with concentration as he delivers every line with passion, precision and often venom.
"Springsteen is 75 years old now. His hair is greyer and wirier. He no longer plays guitar on his back or does knee slides across the stage like he did in his youth, but he's still more than capable of helming a powerhouse two and a half hour show which never once loses fire, brimstone or focus. The main members of the E Street Band are now in their 70s too, but with saxophonist Jake Clemons replacing his late, legendary uncle Clarence, they roar away as inimitably as ever".
In the meantime, a huge, nine-LP/seven-CD box set, Tracks II: The Lost Albums, covering Springsteen's career between 1983 and 2018, will be released on June 27. The never-before-released albums contain no fewer than 83 songs. A companion offering – Lost And Found: Selections from The Lost Albums — will feature 20 songs from across the collection, and will also go on sale on June 27.
* Springsteen and the E Street Band play Liverpool's Anfield stadium on June 4 and 7.