He’s a story telling genius trapped in a real-life narrative he simply can’t understand, reducing a rock legend to the equivalent of a spoiled teenager, but at least the man can still sing and that counts for something despite his ramblings.
There isn’t a 76 year old rockstar on the planet that can put on a show like Bruce Springsteen. On Monday evening, the Boss and the E Street Band tore through 27 songs in around three hours at Newark, New Jersey’s Prudential Center spanning fifty years of his career. I’ve been to about forty shows myself and have “dragged” my wife to more than ten, but I’d never been this close to the stage, watching Bruce and the band from just a few feet away, near enough to clearly see his age and that some of my friends spotted us in video going around on social media. As I remarked upon scoring the tickets in the first place, it felt like I won the lottery landing at merely number 136 in the virtual line on Ticketmaster, able to get the best seats in the house. So good, they weren’t even seats, and were instead standing room only in the pit by the stage. Unlike recent tours the setlist boasted several covers including Edwin Starr’s classic “War,” the little known Clash cult hit “Clampdown,” and Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” alongside a selection of his own work that seemed designed to test his vocal limits as he heads well into his eighth decade. For better or worse, fans looking for Springsteen’s more radio friendly pop songs weren’t likely to find many of them here. Instead, he growled and screamed his way through much heavier, more searing fare, some of which hadn’t been a fixture of his performances in decades.
“My City of Ruins,” a song immortalized by the 9-11 tribute performance almost twenty five years ago, is a perfect example. Originally written to eulogize the decline of Springsteen’s adopted home town of Asbury Park, it was repurposed to meet the needs of New York City in the worst attack on the American homeland in history, and is now meant to serve as a metaphor for the state of the entire country under President Donald Trump. While I might personally disagree with applying it in that fashion, there’s no doubt the song retains a haunting power in performance as a story of inevitable decay becomes one of rebirth:
There’s a blood red circle on the cold dark ground
And the rain is falling down
The church door’s thrown open, I can hear the organ’s song
But the congregation’s gone
“My City of Ruins” begins with a scene of startling desolation. There’s an unexplained “blood red circle” inscribed on ground that is otherwise cold, dark, and wet. The church looming in the background is empty, yet haunted by the notes of an organ that presumably sounded in better days before the lament of the chorus, “My city of ruins, my city of ruins.” The second verse offers no relief, expanding on the first as another ghostly sound, “the sweet bells of mercy,” drifts “through the evening trees.” The speaker encounters other people for the first time, but they are just as lost and lonely as the church, merely “Young men on the corner, like scattered leaves” in an increasingly abandoned landscape because the church isn’t the only thing empty in this city. The storefront windows are boarded up and the streets are barren as well, as though nothing truly lives there anymore before the song takes a turn towards the more personal. The speaker’s “brother,” whether literal or figurative, is “down on his knees” in “My city of ruins, My city of ruins,” but all might not be lost. Rather than proceeding directly into the next verse, the speaker urges his brother and the city to “Come on, rise up, Come on, rise up, Come on rise up,” repeating the short phrase like an incantation, as though he might bring a better future into existence through exhortation alone.
From there, the third verse gets even more personal, introducing the idea of a lost love in addition to a city and a brother. Tears on the pillow appear to be all that remains of her, a ghostly physical reminder, after she took his heart when she left, prompting him to ask, “Without your sweet kiss my soul is lost, my friend, Tell me, how do I begin again? My city’s in ruins, My city’s in ruins.” The question, like so many in life, has no easy answer, however. The only thing the speaker can do is try to make it happen with his own will and the hope of some benevolence in the universe:
Now, with these hands, with these hands
With these hands, with these hands
I pray, Lord (with these hands, with these hands)
I pray for the strength, Lord (with these hands, with these hands)
Yeah, I pray for the faith, Lord (with these hands, with these hands)
Pray for your love, Lord (with these hands, with these hands)
Musically, “My City of Ruins” is an evocative, slow burn. Piano and organ echo the idea of the church from the opening verse, the lyrics are sprinkled with religious symbolism, Springsteen sings as if he was addressing a congregation, and the song builds to a crescendo, as though it truly were a gospel attempting to summon the better angels of our nature, something the Boss has clearly been hoping to do throughout entire 20 show Land of Hope and Dreams Tour. For the most part, the performance manages to succeed. Springsteen has an uncanny ability at his age to make songs sound as good as ever, if not better than ever no matter how many times he has performed them in the past. In addition to “My City of Ruins,” stand out singing and musicianship on “Youngstown,” “Murder Incorporated,” “American Skin (41 Shots),” and more familiar show staples, “The Rising” and “Badlands” reached an apex before the last in the main set, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” which was a staple ten years ago and is now revived. While the set list could’ve used a “Darlington County” or “Working on the Highway” to break up the final third with a little more fun, it you were to simply close your eyes and listen, it would be hard to say whether you were seeing a 76 year old Springsteen or a much younger incarnation. Even “Born to Run,” which he has played 1,885 times, “Dancing in the Dark,” 1,195, and “The Promised Land” 1,550 sound as close to brand new as one can get. For whatever reason, the passion is still there and it comes through live.
Politically, however, Springsteen falls far, far short of his goal, despite delivering no fewer than four speeches that combine typical progressive pablum about compassion for black and brown people with a healthy dose of Trump-derangement, as epitomized by his one new song, “Street of Minneapolis.” While I am not generally a proponent of the “shut up and sing” mantra, believing that music and art in general can be seen as inherently political at times, the problem is simple: For a man of Springsteen’s obvious creative talent, having crafted songs, stories, and characters that have taken life in people’s imagination and popular culture at large, he seems to have nothing new to say on the political front and even what he regurgitates from talking points dating back more than a decade is frequently contradictory, amounting to absolutely nothing save to rant about President Trump. In fact, Springsteen begins the show without any music at all. In a stark spotlight on a dark stage, he claims what has been claimed countless times before, “The America 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 currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless and treasonous administration,” only to go on to insist that he’s asking the audience to “join with us in choosing hope over fear, democracy over authoritarianism, the rule of law over lawlessness, ethics over unbridled corruption, resistance over complacency, unity over division, and peace over war.” Somehow, he seems to think it is possible to proclaim that the sitting President is “corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless, and treasonous” without actively spreading the very fear or division he’s supposedly concerned about. Instead, he’s offering a message of hope, but hope of what? He doesn’t say.
Across three additional speeches sprinkled throughout the show, he likewise fails to do so, revealing the black hole in the center of his argument and a startling lack of both self-awareness and irony. Clearly, he loathes the President with what he considers a righteous passion and just as clearly he has invested a lot of time and energy in these speeches, writing them and carefully rehearsing them, but he’s powerless to do anything about it except proselytize in front of fans that paid to see him play music, many of whom disagree with him politically. At points, the dynamic reaches absurdity, such as his eulogizing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both who died in altercations with ICE and Border Patrol Agents in January, neither of whom we’ve heard much about since because contrary to Springsteen’s belief, Ms. Good drove her car directly at an agent and Mr. Pretti was clearly a loose cannon, desperate to pick a fight who got into a violent altercation with agents two weeks before his death. For some reason, Springsteen feels these two should be immortalized by name anyway, blissfully unaware that the conversation has moved on. “This past winter, federal troops brought death and terror to the streets of Minneapolis,” he proclaimed. “Minnesota, you gave us hope. You gave us courage. And for those who gave their lives, Renee Good, mother of three, brutally murdered, and Alex Pretti, VA nurse, executed by ICE and left to die in the street without even the decency of our lawless government investigating their deaths. Their bravery, their sacrifice, and their names will not be forgotten,” but if you were to quiz the audience, I doubt half of them would’ve remembered and I would argue for obvious reasons.
As a result, Springsteen cannot bring these disparate threads to any meaningful conclusion. He closes his last speech of the evening by essentially questioning why we can’t all get along, which as is always the case in these situations, we can take to mean by adopting his own personal opinion and completely abandoning our point of view and deeply held, just as passionate beliefs. At no point does he seem capable of considering why millions do not feel the way he does, a fact that is more than a little ironic considering many of those who disagree are the sort of blue collar worker championed in his songs for decades. How is it possible he could so deeply understand their frustration and defiance across dozens of songs, distilling it down into immortal phrases, “it’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to win,” “I wanna spit in the face of these badlands,” or “tramps like us, baby we were born to run,” but have absolutely nothing to say and apparently no understanding of President Trump’s appeal after a decade at the center of our politics? If Springsteen can effortlessly channel working class cultural and economic woes, why is he seemingly incapable of understanding their political concerns? If his goal is to unite rather than divide, bring people together rather than polarize, wouldn’t attempting to see things from their point of view be the best way to do so for an artist? It’s not as if he hasn’t seen all sides before, why can’t he do so now or does he simply refuse to do so?
Some have claimed that he’s become so elite, he has lost something fundamental. Bobby Olivier, writing for NJ.com believes “Springsteen’s N.J. concert was poisoned by hypocrisy. Anti-Trump final act is a tragic mistake.” To be sure, Mr. Olivier has trashed Springsteen shows before, namely an epic performance at MetLife Stadium in 2023 that he claimed should have cribbed more from Taylor Swift, but here he seems to have more of a point. As he and undoubtedly many others, including my lovely wife, saw it, “It’s all hypocritical crap. Profiteering over legitimate protest. Springsteen’s artistic identity, as a bleeding-heart populist who sings for the destitute and downtrodden, has never been more disconnected from his economic behavior as a touring act or businessman…The unrecognizable reality of the 2026 Springsteen experience, coupled with this tour’s political framing — an exploitation of American division and outrage in a manner no better than any cable news pundit — is a damning contradiction, a lapse in logic. It threatens to tarnish the final act of Bruce’s career and is no small tragedy for New Jersey’s greatest rock star.” He continued, “His impulse, to preserve his standing as rock’s last great prophet in the most commercial way imaginable, is shameful and frankly, a bit boring in its perceived antagonism. Of all the themes for a tour, he’s pitching anti-Trump … in the president’s second term? Singing to 15,000 fans who already agree with him or they wouldn’t have spent a car payment (or two) on a ticket? What a revolutionary…While it’s clear Bruce believes his motives are genuine — to his credit, publicly opposing a president known for his vindictiveness is an act of bravery — an artist as insightful as him should be able to see the bigger picture and how he cannot cherry-pick his moral standing…Perhaps at 76 he’s lost touch with the business machinery surrounding him, or simply doesn’t care about coherence. It’s cold comfort either way…to frame it all now as some act of protest, set at a price few can afford, is not the tradition or high ground it pretends to be. It’s a hollow monetization of a fraught time in American history and a significant blemish on a storied career.”
While I’m not sure I’d go that far, Mr. Olivier certainly has a point. Springsteen doesn’t have many tours left at this level. While I am comfortable trusting the art rather than the artist, many – including my own wife who believed the politics interfered with her enjoyment of the experience to at least some extent, claiming she was uncomfortable with the whole thing even as she loves his music and being so close to the stage – obviously do and some of my friends have questioned how I can be so invested in the opposite political point of view, writing constantly on this blog, and even go to the show in the first place. Personally, my feelings are hard to describe. I joked with my wife when we got the tickets that our household is like The Sopranos and Christopher Columbus. Bruce Springsteen is a hero in this house, end of story. There’s certainly some truth to that, but at the same time I’m at an odd point where I find his passionate need to speechify bizarrely comical and amusing. Here’s a billionaire with more money and power than I’ll ever have, screaming into the wind as they say about what has already happened and he is powerless to control beyond bitching about it. He’s a story telling genius trapped in a real-life narrative he simply can’t understand and the only thing he can do is complain, reducing a rock legend to the equivalent of a spoiled teenager, but at least the man can still sing and that counts for something despite his ridiculous ramblings.
On a side note: How times have changed. In the summer of 2000, I had the dubious distinction of being thrown out of Madison Square Garden for smoking pot about halfway through one of the Springsteen shows, during “Secret Garden” of all songs, recorded for the Live in NYC album and HBO special. On Monday, modern tech allows one to vape ten feet from the stage, practically close rough to blow it in his face. Will wonders never cease?
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 