About three hours and five minutes into the first of two enormous performances at Wembley Stadium, Bruce Springsteen asks incredulously, “You think you can outlast the E Street Band?!?” “This has been going on for fifty fuckin’ years!” he yells. In fact, 2025 will commemorate the 50th anniversary of Born To Run and the formation of the E Street Band that most people are most familiar with. Of course, the band will not include the legendary Clarence Clemons and organist/accordion player Danny Federici, but Jake Clemons and Charlie Giordano are now well-established members of the lineup and excellent musicians in their own right.
Bruce Springsteen has been somewhat less adaptable in his show management throughout this massive tour, which started in early 2023. He has taken fewer audience requests and made fewer adjustments to the set list from night to night. The band’s themes of loss, mortality, and resiliency were best conveyed in a few choices from 2020’s Letter To You album, which included a carefully chosen set from across the band’s career for the first leg of the tour. For someone who enjoys jazz and improvisation, the shows were more interesting because of the unpredictability and the sensation that anything could happen than because of the improvisation in the music itself. In 2023, this spirit mostly deserted the buildings.
Although Springsteen’s devoted fans, some of whom invest a lot of time and money traveling from show to show, may still feel resentful at the lack of fan favorite deep cuts to reward their efforts, the set has luckily grown and gotten a little less rigorous since then.
Throughout, the last part of the set, which is more geared toward a larger crowd, has steadfastly remained fixed. The physicality, dedication, and sincerity Springsteen puts into each performance are still clearly visible, though, and any show is certain to be an overwhelming experience.
What’s fascinating now is how he interacts with the most devoted fans in the front row and pairs older and newer songs to illustrate ideas that have evolved throughout his career (during Thursday’s show, a sign read, “My boyfriend will propose if he gets your harmonica” – the request was unavoidably honored). A brief lecture about the formation of Springsteen’s first band as a teenager, The Castiles, in 1965, and a reflection on loss and grief in the wake of George Theiss’s recent death, which left Springsteen as the group’s lone surviving member, take up the center of the set. You could hear a pin drop in a stadium during the solo performance of Last Man Standing that follows. This enhances the song’s potent blend of vulnerability and survival instinct, not only to provide a brief respite for the most hardworking band in entertainment. The band always returns to sing Backstreets, one of Springsteen’s best songs and one that hasn’t been heard much in Europe up to this point. It’s also unclear whether the song is about romantic love or friendship. Is Terry a man or a woman? Did George Theiss always use Terry as a cipher character? Though you may choose to read any subtext, the juxtaposition of a song about the rush of heightened emotions in youth and one about the experience of growing older is superb.
Whit this subject in mind, Springsteen’s presentations have thus far tended to focus on his personal life (albeit in a way that may ring true for many of his audience members as well), leaving little room for his character analyses, societal criticism, or overtly political songs. This appears to have altered in light of the murder attempt on Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s decision to resign from the US election campaign.
Springsteen uses the songs in the center of Thursday’s set—none of which were written since 2008—to address the present. One is an electrifying rendition of a song from The Ghost of Tom Joad album, Nebraska’s mid-90s counterpart, and the other two are full band arrangements of songs from the stark Nebraska album (the story of which is set to be made into a movie starring Jeremy Allen White, who was on stage at Saturday’s performance). Despite having a faint resemblance to Spirit in the Sky, Reason To Believe is transformed into a nasty, distorted blues song with a stormy power that cannot be subdued by even a small amount of audience participation. Youngstown, which is performed both nights with a ferocious intensity that defies Springsteen’s age, directly addresses the consequences of post-industrial neglect and economic injustice. Additionally, it is the ideal setting for some bold improvisation by the legendary guitarist Nils Lofgren. Long Walk Home from the Magic album, the final song in this run, is a lament for small-town decline that strikes the ideal balance between small-c conservative and liberal values. It was written as a critique of the Bush administration and serves as a perfect metaphor for what might require a lot of defense in November. It is played again on both evenings after being presented as “a prayer for my country.” It now has a unique new edge in a fresh arrangement that includes the supporting vocalists and the horn section.
These days, the set often feels like a well-curated grab bag of past tour experiences. The combination of Hungry Heart and Spirit in the Night, which allows the audience to participate completely, is reminiscent of the set lists from the 2012 Wrecking Ball tour. Lonesome Day, which opens both shows, is reminiscent of the Rising tour from 2003, while Reason To Believe and Long Walk Home are taken from the Magic tour from 2007–2008. Even though Thursday’s set still features the more recent staples of Ghosts and Letter To You (the latter reflecting on George Theiss in a more lively and strangely uplifting way), by Saturday’s performance, Springsteen has virtually forgotten about the newer material, choosing instead to play Candy’s Room, a fiery Adam Raised A Cain (complete with bonus extra guitar solo) from Darkness On The Edge of Town, and two songs he always uses to get the crowd going (Death To My Hometown and Darlington County).
Springsteen maintains his commanding presence on stage in both performances, walking down among the audience at pivotal moments and leading the band with theatrical gestures. However, this performance also honors the E Street Band, from its most seasoned members to its most recent additions.
During the extremely lively E Street Shuffle, drummer Max Weinberg, whose remarkable physical endurance is in many ways as amazing as Springsteen’s, spars with new percussionist Anthony Almonte. Nils Lofgren is finally given more than one song (the now-old song Because The Night and the aforementioned Youngstown) to showcase his skill and wide range of musical language. Jake Clemons is frequently praised for his ability to channel the strength and spirit of his uncle (and is embraced by Bruce at the conclusion of both shows).With a hammered-up friendship that still manages to be appealing, Steve Van Zandt is unavoidably frequently invited to share the vocal mic with Springsteen. In keeping with the show’s theme, the backing vocalists take center stage for a cover of The Commodores’ 80s soft soul gem Night Shift. The song isn’t entirely out of place, as it honors the soul heroes Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson. It also appears on Springsteen’s most recent album of soul covers, which he is perhaps wisely ignoring on this tour.
The show takes a very long time to reach the point where it might appeal to those in the crowd who are only there out of curiosity, even in the absence of any album outtakes or anything from the fan-favorite Tracks box set. The key songs (The Rising, Badlands, Thunder Road, Born In The USA, Born To Run, Bobby Jean, Dancing In The Dark, and a James Brown-inspired Tenth Avenue Freeze Out in which the larger E Street Band is unveiled in full) are tied together in the show’s last moments and the encore. As usual, the house lights are turned on for the encore, which is initially confusing but a brilliant way to unite the 90,000-strong community, whether you are a frequent visitor or a one-time visitor.
Springsteen’s wife Patti Scialfa, who is otherwise mostly taking a leave of absence on this tour, adds a lively weekend party vibe to Saturday’s performance. She joins for a rendition of Tougher Than the Rest that is just as powerful as the 2016 Wembley performance.
The more somber and solemn performance on Thursday might have the advantage due to some amazing renditions of some of his greatest hits. While the heartbreaking Racing In The Street lingered in the air with its lovely, lingering ending including Roy Bittan’s excellent piano performance, Land of Hope and Dreams always seems to take a show to a whole new level.
Following the typical silly run-through of Twist and Shout, both performances conclude, as all but one of the tour’s shows do, with a solo acoustic rendition of I’ll See You In My Dreams. This is a moving chance for introspection, for remembering friends who are no longer with us, and for acknowledging that, despite Springsteen’s age-defying three-hour+ shows, this must end sooner rather than later. But not quite yet. He adds on Saturday, “We’re not quitting either!” The words “We’ll be seein’ ya,” which the superstitious among us desire to hear, conclude the show and are a reference to the speech that precedes Last Man Standing.
