Bruce Springsteen will be spending a sizeable chunk of 2023 on the road, and the New Jersey stadium rocker kicked off his latest world tour last night (February 1) with a typically epic, 28-song performance with the E Street Band at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida.
The first show for the E Street Band since a 14-month tour celebrating 1980 album The River concluded in Australia in February 2017, the Tampa gig was the first of 31 US dates for 'The Boss', on a run that will close at the Newark Prudential Center in his home state on April 14.
Featuring no fewer than six songs from Springsteen's 2020 record Letter To You, the three hour-plus show also included four songs from 1975's Born To Run, four from Springsteen's follow-up album, 1978's Darkness on the Edge of Town and three from his globe-conquering Born In The USA set. As is customary, Springsteen also slid in a few cover versions amid the originals, leading his now-18-piece band through versions of the Commodores Nightshift and Ben E. King's Don’t Play That Song (You Lied).
The setlist in full ran as follows:
1. No Surrender
2. Ghosts
3. Prove It All Night
4. Letter to You
5. The Promised Land
6. Out in the Street
7. Candy’s Room
8. Kitty’s Back
9. Brilliant Disguise
10. Nightshift (Commodores cover)
11. Don’t Play That Song (You Lied) (Ben E. King cover)
12. The E Street Shuffle
13. Johnny 99
14. Last Man Standing
15. House of a Thousand Guitars
16. Backstreets
17. Because the Night
18. She’s the One
19. Wrecking Ball
20. The Rising
21. Badlands
Encore
22. Burnin’ Train
23. Born to Run
24. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
25. Glory Days
26. Dancing in the Dark
27. Tenth Avenue Freest-Out
28. I’ll See You In My Dreams
Springsteen will front the E Street Band at four huge outdoor shows in the UK this summer.
He will play two London shows as part of next summer's American Express presents BST Hyde Park season, and will also play stadium dates in Edinburgh and Birmingham.
Details of the four shows are as follows:
May 30: Edinburgh, BT Murrayfield Stadium
Jun 16: Birmingham, Villa Park
Jul 06: London, American Express presents BST Hyde Park
Jul 08: London, American Express presents BST Hyde Park
These will be Springsteen's first UK shows since he played London's Wembley Stadium in the summer of 2016.
