"Europe '81 Revisited," w/ fans/authors/publishers Dan French, Mike Saunders, and Sal Trepat
- Letters To You
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
September 1, 2026
While we've been diving deep recently on the subject of significant anniversaries this year, there is yet another major 2026 anniversary that should be remembered and celebrated appropriately within Springsteen fandom: the 45th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's 1981 European tour. Europe '81 was their first major European tour (having played only four European gigs on the '75 Born to Run Tour and no European shows at all on the '78 Darkness... Tour.) Just recently, Springsteen himself wrote in his social-media post on the passing of Jim Marchese, who photographed the tour extensively, that the ’81 European tour firmly established his and the E Street Band’s relationship with “one of the most dedicated group of fans we’d have in the world.”
While the '81 European tour's 45th anniversary officially occurred last spring, this summer is still the perfect time to celebrate and reflect upon it, since just recently England-based Springsteen fan, researcher and writer extraordinaire Mike Saunders published his first book, focusing on a major sub-leg of that tour:
Highway 81 Revisited: Bruce Springsteen’s Longest UK Tour is, in Mike’s own words, “the first and only book to pull all the strands of the story together from various sources into one place” and “provide an in-depth, highly detailed, informative and entertaining record of Bruce Springsteen’s first full UK tour almost half a century ago, and all that led up to it.” You can click here to purchase Highway 81 Revisited... online at Amazon, or here to purchase it at Amazon UK, or here to purchase a special author-signed-copy edition at Badlands Record Shop.
To celebrate both the '81 European tour's 45th anniversary and the arrival of Mike's new book, we recently recorded an extensive conversation with Mike and two other major longtime Springsteen fans, authors, and publishers:
Dan French, also based in England, who in the 1980s founded and published the English Springsteen fanzine Point Blank, and more recently wrote and published the books Grab Your Ticket and Your Suitcase: A Personal Bruce Springsteen Concert History and Ticket Stub Stories – 20th Century Boy: A Personal Concerts History 1972-2000 - ( You can click here to purchase Dan's books online at Amazon, or here to purchase them at Amazon UK, or here and here to purchase special author-signed-copy editions at Badlands Record Shop.)
Sal Trepat, based in Spain, who founded the now-defunct Spanish Springsteen fanzine also entitled Point Blank
Dan, Mike, and Sal spent more than ninety minutes conversing with Letters To You's editor/publisher Shawn Poole, delightfully sharing their enduring memories of and insights on this important, historic tour. Among the highlights: Dan's memories of attending his very first Springsteen concert - Frankfurt, West Germany 14 April 1981 - which ended up including unanticipated pre-show/soundcheck/post-show hangouts with Bruce and the E Streeters, Sal attending the historic 21 April 1981 Barcelona show (Sal's first Springsteen concert, also declared by the late, great Dave Marsh to be not just his all-time favorite Springsteen show but also his all-time favorite rock-concert experience of any type performed by anyone,) and Mike relating the life-altering thrill of seeing his first two Springsteen concerts back-to-back in his native Brighton (26 & 27 May 1981,) capped off in the wee hours after the second show by one of those legendary informal meet-and-greets for the faithful, just outside Brighton Centre.
And speaking of Dave Marsh, in a very moving coincidence, memories of Dave and his many incisive writings about Europe '81 came up several times during our conversation. As fate would have it, just after we finished recording the discussion on Sunday August 15, each of us - via various texts, emails, etc. - received the sad news of Dave Marsh's passing.
You can hear our entire "Europe '81 Revisited" conversation with Dan French, Mike Saunders, and Sal Trepat by clicking one of the links below, embedded from our SoundCloud and YouTube platforms:
And check out below our supplemental gallery of vintage images from Europe '81:
Finally, as an extra-special little surprise treat for Sal Trepat and everyone else who's still missing and remembering with love the recently departed Dave Marsh, here's an archived 2015 email message from Dave to Shawn Poole. It was received shortly after Shawn shared with Dave some new-at-the-time information about the rare Barcelona '81 footage, the same footage that later was mentioned/discussed briefly when Sal got introduced at the beginning of our recorded "Europe '81 Revisited" conversation:
Europe '81 forever!
