"God bless Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band" - On The LOHAD American Tour's launch
- Shawn Poole
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
April 7, 2026
I'll admit that I was unsure about their successfully pulling off here in the U.S. a version of what they did last year in Europe, but I also learned a long time ago just how much and how often Bruce Springsteen and his various collaborators can still surprise you through the years. Indeed, just two gigs in (with the third happening tonight in Inglewood, CA, as this essay is being published,) it's already very clear that Springsteen and the E Street Band have succeeded overwhelmingly in bringing to the U.S. the perfect rock concert to help us endure and - more important - work to change our ongoing "hard times," as Bruce reiterates in his final major spoken-word piece at the end of the show.
At that point in the evening, he also admits freely that their 2026 Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour wasn't so much planned as born, out of sheer, desperate necessity. Apparently this past winter's ICE occupation of Minnesota, and especially the killing of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, is what spurred Springsteen into swift, decisive action. Not only did he write "Streets of Minneapolis" on the same day that Alex Pretti was killed, recording and releasing it just days later, and within the same month that Renee Good was murdered, but whatever else Springsteen might have been planning for Spring 2026 instead got replaced by the quick organization of a special 20-dates Spring 2026 tour with the E Street Band.
I was fortunate to be able to attend and witness in person the opening night of this unique tour in Minneapolis. As one of the many - though unfortunately not all - U.S.-based Springsteen fans who remain extremely concerned about this second, deeper backslide into a Trump presidency, its administrative actions, and their current and future impact here and abroad, this is exactly the Springsteen/ESB concert I've wanted and needed to hear right now.
It's a show that reiterates and validates the various truths about why this second-term Trump presidency is so toxic, while also offering catharsis, inspiration, hope, challenge... and, oh yeah, some much-needed fun, silliness, entertainment, laughter, and joy along the way, as well. (Hey, to paraphrase a famous if inaccurately attributed saying, if I can't laugh, applaud, groove, and enjoy stuff like Max Weinberg attempting to sing "Hungry Heart," I don't want to be part of your revolution.)
The full setlist has been well-publicized already, of course, and I see no need to do that again here, especially if you're still trying to avoid any spoilers. I do want to note, however, just how well-constructed, focused, and purposeful this show is, not just in terms of the setlist, but also in regards to Bruce's spoken-word setpieces. Therefore, I'll focus on just what I consider to be some of the more significant examples of that.
Anyone who watched the official Night One livestream of the first two songs played in Minneapolis last Tuesday already knows about that opening one-two gutpunch of "War" and "Born in the U.S.A." back-to-back. In the decade that preceded that moment, you could count on one hand how many times a full-band "Born in the U.S.A." had been performed in the United States, and "War" hadn't been regularly featured in any of Bruce's setlists for almost forty years. In fact, the last time "War" got played straight into "Born in the U.S.A." was on the 1988 Tunnel of Love Express Tour. Back then, it was a brilliant bit of setlist sequencing, making it harder to misinterpret the essential meaning behind the oft-misunderstood and oft-misportrayed "Born in the U.S.A.," and of course it works just as brilliantly now, while an insane Trump-initiated war with Iran rages on, and The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)'s recent birthright-citizenship ad campaign has taken "Born in the U.S.A." in very different and unexpected directions.
The 2026 version of "War" also revises Nils Lofgren's great 1985 guitar-intro to the song, which now also serves as the musical bed for Bruce's opening statement of purpose on the 2026 tour. That statement has been altered significantly from how Springsteen opened last year's European Land of Hope & Dreams Tour shows. This year he's added two more descriptors to his opening depiction of the Trump administration, now identifying it as "corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless, and treasonous."
Augmenting that and other parts of the show to address explicitly the racist aspects of the Trump agenda, as well as the recklessness of diving headlong into a brutal, unnecessary, and extremely dangerous war with Iran (along with the numerous well-documented militaristic attacks on U.S. citizens and others who oppose and protest the administration's agenda/actions,) is essential in conveying just how disastrous a path on which our country's political and social shifts over the past decade have led us. Not surprisingly, Bruce has skillfully continued to develop his spoken-word segments in the show to be even more "on-target" than they were last year. Nevertheless, and equally unsurprisingly, he continues to let the music itself do most of the heavy lifting, as it still does so well. New-for-this-tour highlights include the powerful full band version of "Streets of Minneapolis," the return of the E Street Band version of "American Skin (41 Shots)," which was performed only once in the past five years before this tour began, and the even rarer E Street Band version of "The Ghost of Tom Joad."
The greatness of those three particular songs also has a lot to do with the tour's special guest, Tom Morello. Morello recently played a major role in encouraging Springsteen to stick with the explicit, non-subtle lyrical approach of "Streets of Minneapolis," and of course he was all over the underrated High Hopes album, including its studio versions of "American Skin" and "...Joad." So far Morello has been joining the band on about a third of the nightly setlist, including the three songs noted above. He remains a great addition to Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's multi-guitar sonic awesomeness any time that he's onstage with them, both musically and politically.
"Land of Hope And Dreams," the beautiful song that also provided the name for last year's and this year's anti-Trump tours, has been switched from the beginning of the show to the equally important closing-song slot of the main set. The switch hasn't diminished at all the song's enduring impact and importance. I also find it amusingly ironic that in the midst of all of the "no kings" references and iconography surrounding this tour, Bruce Springsteen is still singing "this train carries fools and kings... all aboard" at each and every show. On the other hand, carrying around the baggage of living under the reign of a fool and wannabe king is the show's essential theme, so maybe there's really nothing ironic about it after all.
Given the relative brevity of the tour and its very well-planned, purposeful setlist structure, it seems unlikely that there will be many changes or song variations occurring on a regular basis. For the penultimate encore in Minneapolis, of course there was a great, appropriate, and moving one-off of "Purple Rain," performed for the first time since "The Maestro" Prince's death a decade ago. (And it looks probable that tonight's attendees in Inglewood will be treated to the first cover of The Clash's "Clampdown" since 2014.)
But it's the tour's standard show-closer - with Bruce and the band covering another song by another Minnesota musical master, Bob Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" as arranged by some of his greatest interpreters, The Byrds - that truly brings it all back home. (Before this past week, incidentally, "Chimes of Freedom" also hadn't been played by Springsteen and/or the E Street Band in the U.S. for almost forty years. It was last heard here during the U.S. dates of the 1988 Human Rights Now! Tour.)
Ultimately, Bruce's introduction to Dylan's song is as important as the singing of the song itself, in offering a vision of the civility towards and connections with our fellow citizens that we've lost but might someday regain, IF we're still willing to take that long walk home together. The introduction begins with how vindictively and brutally "King Trump" views and treats anyone who disagrees with him, setting one standard for what now passes for political discourse in the U.S. (A bit earlier in the evening, while introducing "My City of Ruins," he also brilliantly summoned an image of Trump as the ultimate "snowflake.") But then he quickly shifts gears from what is to what could be, first by quoting Renee Good's final words, spoken to her killer, and then paraphrasing the late, great civil-rights leader John Lewis' immortal words about encouraging all of us to get into some "good trouble." Finally, his closing benediction before singing the song: "So God bless Alex Pretti, and God bless Renee Good. God bless you, and God bless America."
And there it is; that full and truly patriotic articulation... not just of our current predicament, but also of our potential to survive and change things for the better. That's what's at the heart of this special, excellent, moving, inspiring, and important work of art, brought to U.S. venues at last. Here's hoping that everyone who's wanted and needed this show at least as much as I did gets to witness it firsthand, as well. And finally, despite being the agnostic I am, I'll add - with much love, respect, and appreciation - a hearty, sincere, and well-deserved "God bless Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band," for their collectively continuing to perform so well, so bravely, and so effectively in such dangerous times.
