Recommendations of the Editorial team
On Monday night at Madison Square Garden, Bruce Springsteen gave guest vocalist Tom Morello the crucial line of the night – during their collaborative version of “Clampdown.” “Let fury have the hour,” shouted Morello as the E Street Band channeled the Clash in a way no one thought possible as “London Calling.” and “The River” were in the charts at the same time. “Anger can be powerful.”
As he did at every concert on his Land of Hope and Dreams tour, Springsteen joined in harmony singing on the next line: “Do you know that you can use it?”
When Springsteen reunited the E Street Band in 1999 after a decade-plus hiatus, Morello was playing with Rage Against the Machine at Woodstock ’99 and the first-ever Coachella—and hadn’t yet sung a single note in public. Springsteen hadn’t yet been back in the studio with the band at the time, which made him even more determined to avoid any form of nostalgia. He deliberately left out some of his most popular songs, incorporated outtakes from the then new box set release “Tracks” into the program and made a metal-oriented arrangement of his 1995 song “Youngstown” the centerpiece of the show. He also wrote a new song – “Land of Hope and Dreams” – that laid out a utopian vision of possibilities for his band and his country.
The band plays like old times
In the 27 years since, the E Street Band has lost two of its defining members – Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici – but has continued undeterred. Springsteen has written and recorded a complete new catalog work for the 21st century, whose strongest songs in concert stand effortlessly alongside his classics from the ’70s and ’80s. The remaining 20th-century band members – Max Weinberg, Garry Tallent, Nils Lofgren, Roy Bittan – are all in their 70s and somehow play as fiery as ever in nearly three-hour shows. The E Street Band is malleable enough that Morello’s once-breathtaking guitar excesses in “The Ghost of Tom Joad” are now simply part of it – as a counterpart to Lofgren’s equally soaring excursions in “Youngstown” and “Because the Night”. The band delivers on their leader’s bold promises and conjures a world where “the music never ends,” as Springsteen sings in “House of a Thousand Guitars.”
The nation? Another story.
Unlike most Springsteen tours since “The Rising,” this time there is only one new song: the immediately combustible protest number “Streets of Minneapolis,” which immortalizes Renée Good and Alex Pretti – as well as the “federal thugs” who shot them. This is driving boomer arena-goers across the country to chant “ICE out now.” Even without a new album, this tour is far more anchored in the here and now than any other classic rock show you could name – barring the ever-contemporary Bob Dylan. The memory of the deliberate misunderstanding of “Born in the USA” – especially by Ronald Reagan himself – is still alive for Springsteen, and so he has put together a set list and announcements that condemn Donald Trump and his administration with all the consequences.
The fact that his catalog seems tailor-made for this purpose is solely due to how long Springsteen has been dealing with issues that too many politicians and artists have ignored. “Death to My Hometown,” “Youngstown,” “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and even “Murder Incorporated” — with a surprising guitar salvo from Steve Van Zandt at MSG — paint a picture of the forces that got us here before Trump. Their texts project a de-industrialized, hollowed-out nation without a social safety net that was bound to become vulnerable to populist demagoguery – in fact, the real-life template for the unemployed steelworker who speaks in “Youngstown” told the New York Times that he had voted for Trump.
Morello and Clemons light up
“American Skin (41 Shots)” – written years before Black Lives Matter – takes on racism and its connection to police violence and abuse of power. The song also gives rise to some of the most lyrical, emotional and effect-free solos of Morello’s career, beginning with a warbling lick exchange with saxophonist Jake Clemons, who seems more confident in his role than ever. (Like the ’70s moment when David Sancious and Ernest “Boom Carter” were in the band, the current E Street Band is truly multi-ethnic – with almost as many black musicians on stage as white ones.)
The tour’s announcements, delivered almost identically night after night, should not be overlooked at a time when the Democratic Party appears leaderless and its highest-ranking representatives appear overwhelmed by the ever-growing list of Trump scandals. Springsteen’s message is so simple and clear that it’s frightening how incapable real politicians seem to be to embrace it. He will not allow the atrocities in Minnesota to be forgotten. He recalls DOGE’s senseless bleeding of USAID and the countless deaths abroad that followed: “It’s not on the front pages anymore,” he said at the Garden – and on every stage so far – “but it’s happening right now. People are dying.” In the meantime, he has had to expand the list of offenses: He now also speaks of the Supreme Court’s attack on the Voting Rights Act and the absurd, shell-based prosecution of James Comey. At its core, it revives an idea that was invoked so often during Trump’s first term that it eventually became a joke among liberals: That’s not normal.
“To many, we are now America – the ruthless, unpredictable, predatory, lawless America,” Springsteen said. “Honesty, honor, humility, truth, compassion, humanity, thoughtfulness, morality, true strength and decency – don’t let anyone tell you that none of it matters anymore. Because it does… So fight with us for the America we love.”
Fire instead of elegy
This time Springsteen is so inflamed that the elegiac feeling of his last tour has disappeared – along with the memories of his own transience. Aside from the ever-riveting bravado of “Wrecking Ball,” he only allowed himself one such moment at MSG: remembering playing his first New York concert at Cafe Wha as a teenager. “What I want to say: Thank you for a life,” he said – and received a long, noticeably emotional applause.
The show began with a beam of light falling on an empty space behind a microphone stand – into which Springsteen eventually stepped for his opening statement. In the seconds leading up to it, it was hard not to notice this vacuum and not think with horror of the day when Bruce Springsteen will no longer be there to fill it.
