Tour preparations began in late July and early August 2002 with closed and then semi-open rehearsals, and then several public rehearsal shows, at Asbury Park, New Jersey's Convention Hall, as well as a highly advertised early morning promotional appearance there on NBC's The Today Show. He also appeared on Late Night with David Letterman on CBS, NBC's Saturday Night Live, and Nightline on ABC.[2] His Nightline interview was one of the most revealing of his career.[3] Usually a very private person, Springsteen agreed to all of these appearances as part of the biggest promotional effort of his career for the tour and its album.
The first leg of the tour formally began on August 7, 2002, with an opening show in Springsteen's home floor of Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey. This commenced what Springsteen's management called their "Barnstorming" , playing 46 arena shows in 46 different cities in North America (39) and Western Europe (7) through the end of the year, ending on December 17 at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The idea was to maximize the publicity effect of the tour for aiding sales of the already heavily promoted new album by visiting as many markets as possible. The attendant publicity would only be increased if tickets were hard to come by, which was the case in Springsteen hot spots which were accustomed to multiple-night stands. The strategy appeared to succeed, as The Rising did well commercially and became Springsteen's best-selling album of new material in 15 years.
After a break of more than two months in winter, the second leg of the tour began on February 28, 2003, with 7 more one-night stands in the United States. The band then travelled to Australia and New Zealand in March for five shows down under. They then quickly returned to North America for 6 more barnstorming shows in April, mostly in Canada.
After a three-week break, barnstorming was over and the promised third leg of multiple-show stands was on. The tour went back to Western Europe, this time satisfying much pent-up demand by playing 24 shows in May and June, all in stadiums, with multiple dates in cities where necessary. These dates began in Feyenoord Stadion in Rotterdam and ended in Stadio San Siro in Milan. Shows in Europe were hugely successful, and for example in Scandinavia, shows in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark sold out in a record two hours. Now it was time for North America to get the same treatment. From mid-July through early October, the band played 33 dates in stadiums (with an intentional emphasis on baseball parks as venues in addition to the usual professional football stadiums), mostly composed of multiple-night stands along the Eastern Seaboard where Springsteen was most popular, starting with what would become 10 shows in New Jersey's Giants Stadium. These were Springsteen's first full appearances in United States stadiums since the 1985 leg of his Born in the U.S.A. Tour, and included visits to icons such as Fenway Park and Dodger Stadium. The Rising Tour finally concluded on October 4, 2003, at Shea Stadium in New York City.
In all, the tour played 120 shows in 82 cities over a span of 14 months.
Songs from The Rising played a key role in the structure of the tour's shows. Concerts typically began with "The Rising" followed by "Lonesome Day", both songs about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. New E Streeter Soozie Tyrell's violin played a prominent role in establishing the texture of these numbers, as it would throughout the concert. Two more September 11 songs, "Empty Sky" and "You're Missing", appeared soon after, to continue the mood; the latter featured an extended instrumental coda from the band, led by Danny Federici's organ. Typically seven or eight songs into the show, "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" provided the first buoyant, happy moments. Springsteen's first-ever use of recorded backing music took place on the mid-show "Worlds Apart", where Middle Eastern vocals were applied. The role of elongated band introductions song for this tour was taken by "Mary's Place", which also usually included interpolations of R&B classics. The main set closer was a final September 11 number, "Into the Fire", which, relevant to the new album's themes, emphasized togetherness and praise for sacrifice rather than the pure exuberance of previous tours' closers such as "Rosalita" and "Light of Day". (A few Rising songs were almost never played during the tour, including "Nothing Man", the quiet "Paradise", and the unusually rhythmic "Let's Be Friends".)
For the rest of the main set, a mixture of songs from throughout Springsteen's catalog would emerge. Set lists were unusually static during the barnstorming (perhaps due to not having to play multiple shows in a venue, although plenty of the faithful were traveling to multiple cities to see the tour), but gradually loosened up. One consistent mid-show mainstay was "Badlands", which never failed to bring audiences to their feet. The next-to-last spot in the main set was often reserved for Springsteen playing a heretofore unusual solo piano spot, running through an old classic such as "For You" or "Incident on 57th Street".
First encores of shows were typically fun and upbeat, featuring the return after a long absence of Springsteen's biggest hit single, "Dancing in the Dark" (in a more rock-oriented arrangement), mindless numbers such as "Ramrod", and concluding with his signature song, "Born to Run". Second encores were typically more thematic, centered around "My City of Ruins", the return of the full band version of "Born in the U.S.A.", and the benedictory "Land of Hope and Dreams".
Some of the second leg shows took place during the run-up to, and March 20, 2003, start of, the Iraq War. Springsteen took note of this, reviving his 1980s hit rendition of Edwin Starr's classic protest song "War" and opening the March 2 Frank Erwin Center show in United States President George W. Bush's old Austin, Texas, backyard with it. All four Australian shows opened with an acoustic "Born in the U.S.A." before the band kicked in with "War". The March 22 show at Sydney Cricket Ground featured three large power blackouts, the first of which came after the opening chords of "War", but the crowd led Springsteen through mass sing-alongs to Max Weinberg's unamplified drums nonetheless.
Springsteen greeting fans around the time of his May 31, 2003, show at Dublin's RDS Arena.Weather is no barrier to Bruce fans: House lights go up during the last encores, revealing an audience soaked by storms but still happy. Giants Stadium, July 21, 2003.
In the European stadium dates, the solo piano spot gave way to a rotating epic slot for "Jungleland", "Racing in the Street", and the like, and a new high-energy cover, "Seven Nights to Rock", became a regular in the encores, as did extended boogie piano solos by Roy Bittan. The final European show in Milan's Stadio San Siro was said by some fans, as well as by Springsteen manager Jon Landau, to be "one of the four or five best Bruce shows of all time." By the time summer 2003 rolled around and the United States multiple night stadium dates were being played, the feel of the show became somewhat looser. As each show was about to begin, the stage video screens would show Springsteen and the band relaxedly walking in from backstage, while Frank Sinatra's classic recording of "Summer Wind" was aired. The second encores also brought a treat for audiences, as "Rosalita" made fully regular appearances for the first time since 1988.
During the ten Giants Stadium shows especially, Springsteen thanked those fans who were attending multiple shows and those who were coming from long distances or out of the country; the advent of robust Bruce-oriented online communities had made these practices easier. The final Giants Stadium show concluded with a performance of "Jersey Girl".
In the two shows immediately following the September 12, 2003, death of Johnny Cash, Springsteen paid tribute by opening each show with an acoustic rendition of Cash's "I Walk The Line".
The Rising Tour would come to a final conclusion in the early autumn with three nights in Shea Stadium, where a brouhaha emerged. The New York Police Department had given Springsteen a personal boat escort for the first show (in addition to giving E Streeter Max Weinberg an escort because he was running late). But then Springsteen had made a rare (for this tour) performance of "American Skin (41 Shots)", a song about the NYPD shooting of Amadou Diallo, in that show. The NYPD took revenge by removing Springsteen's escort for the second show. They were criticized by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others for doing this, and the escort was restored for the third and final night. Bob Dylan was a surprise guest on that last night, with Springsteen saying, "We have my great friend and inspiration with us tonight, Mr. Bob Dylan ... we wouldn't be here tonight without him." The two performed Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" together.
Reviews of The Rising Tour were generally favorable.
A reviewer for PopMatters found an early New York City barnstorming show to be the first Springsteen show he'd seen that lived up to the classic Springsteen he imagined from the 1970s and early 1980s. As a response to the tour's role in helping fans mourn after 9/11, David Segal wrote in a review which appeared the Washington Post, "Lordy, lordy, we needed that. We needed Bruce Springsteen even more than we thought, and we thought we needed him a lot."[4] CLUAS.com reported that a May 2003 Munich show featured tight playing, and that the general admission "pit" was a Tower of Babel of different languages from fans come from all over Europe. National Review Online thought that the tour had gotten much better in 2003 than it had been the year before and that a full-band "Incident on 57th Street" played in Philadelphia had been especially strong.
E Street drummer Max Weinberg gave his own assessment: "Playing for a country that was so much in pain from the events of 9/11 made the Rising Tour so much more than a series of rock concerts. People looked to us — actually they looked to the music — to quiet their sorrows. At first it seemed like the responsibility hoisted on us was too much. How could rock musicians meet these expectations? But somehow we did it. Somehow the tour was a great success." [Santelli, p.89]
The festive park scene in the Giants Stadium parking lot for banner-celebrated, 10-night stand of The Rising Tour during July 2003.
While Springsteen's popularity had dipped over the years in some southern and midwestern regions of the United States, it was still quite strong in Europe and along the United States coasts, as exemplified by the unprecedented 10 nights he played in outdoor football Giants Stadium in New Jersey, a ticket-selling feat that no other musical act can come close to. . Reuters reported that those 10 nights alone resulted in 566,560 tickets being sold and a gross of $38.8 million, a world record for one engagement. The Giants Stadium management reported that ticket buyers to those shows came from all 50 states and all over the world; they had celebrated the event by building a huge boardwalk and amusement park in the parking lot next to the stadium.
Overall, according to Billboard Boxscore, the tour grossed $221.5 million over its two years. Reuters reported a $172.7 million gross worldwide for 2003 , while Pollstar reported a $115.9 million gross within North America for 2003, the best of any act that year, and the second-best ever at the time. Rolling Stone reported that Springsteen kept a bigger share of concert gross receipts than almost anyone, due to better deals with promoters and venues, to lower expenses for not having any fancy stage props or special effects, and to his New Jersey fans buying more merchandise than the average [dead link] (the Giants Stadium shows had specially numbered and colored T-shirts for each night of the stand).
Broadcasts and recordings
The first half of the October 16, 2002, show in Barcelona's Palau Sant Jordi was televised live across Europe on MTV Europe and VH1 UK. A tape of the broadcast was aired by CBS in the United States on February 28, 2003, one day prior to the United States summer stadium show tickets going on sale.
That entire concert was then released as a two-disc DVD, Live in Barcelona, on November 18, 2003, the first time any Springsteen concert had been officially released in full. The DVD opened with his performance of the title song, "The Rising".[2] It also included a documentary, Drop the Needle and Pray: The Rising on Tour, with interviews and additional concert snippets from some of the United States summer stadium dates, including a clip compilation from the shows at Fenway Park entitled "Night of the Living Boss". (The last three nights of the Giants Stadium, both shows at Fenway Park, and all three Shea Stadium shows were filmed in full, but have otherwise not seen release.)
The June 16, 2003, show at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium was released through the Bruce Springsteen Archives in October 2018. Live audio of this tour was noted to be difficult to release due to being recorded using proprietary audio software that has since become out of date.[5]
The E Street Band is an American rock band that has been the primary backing band for rock musician Bruce Springsteen since 1972. In 2014, the E Street Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the bulk of Springsteen's recording and performing career, the band included guitarists Steven Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren, and Patti Scialfa, keyboardists Danny Federici and Roy Bittan, bassist Garry Tallent, drummer Max Weinberg, and saxophonist Clarence Clemons.
The Bruce Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band Tour, afterward sometimes referred to simply as the Sessions Band Tour, was a 2006 concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and the Sessions Band playing what was billed as "An all-new evening of gospel, folk, and blues", otherwise seen as a form of big band folk music. The tour was an outgrowth of the approach taken on Springsteen's We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions album, which featured folk music songs written or made popular by activist folk musician Pete Seeger, but taken to an even greater extent.
The Devils & Dust Tour was a 2005 concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen performing alone on stage on a variety of instruments. It followed the release of his 2005 album Devils & Dust. The tour was named the Top Small Venue Tour of 2005 by the Billboard Touring Awards.
The Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour was a lengthy, top-grossing concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band that took place over 1999 and 2000.
The Bruce Springsteen 1992–1993 World Tour was a concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and a new backing band, that took place from mid-1992 to mid-1993. It followed the simultaneous release of his albums Human Touch and Lucky Town earlier in 1992. It was his first of four non-E Street Band tours. Later, Springsteen had more non-E Street Band tours, the Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, the Seeger Sessions Tour, and the Devils & Dust Tour. The tour was not as commercially or critically successful as past tours, due to poor reception of Human Touch and Lucky Town as well as changes from previous tours. According to Springsteen biographer Dave Marsh, die-hard fans have informally referred to the backing band as "the Other Band".
"Jersey Girl" is a song composed and originally sung by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits from his 1980 album Heartattack and Vine.
The River Tour was a concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band that took place in 1980 and 1981, beginning concurrently with the release of Springsteen's album The River.
The Born in the U.S.A. Tour was the supporting concert tour of Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. album. It was his longest and most successful tour to date. It featured a physically transformed Springsteen; after two years of bodybuilding, the singer had bulked up considerably. The tour was the first since the 1974 portions of the Born to Run tours without guitarist Steven Van Zandt, who decided to go solo after recording the album with the group. Van Zandt, who was replaced by Nils Lofgren, would appear a few times throughout the tour and in some of the music videos to promote the album. It was also the first tour to feature Springsteen's future wife, Patti Scialfa.
Live In Barcelona is a full concert video DVD of a performance by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band of their Rising Tour performance of October 16, 2002 at Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
"Badlands" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, released as the second single from his fourth studio album Darkness on the Edge of Town in July 1978.
The Magic Tour was Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's 2007–08 concert tour of North America and Western Europe.
"Bobby Jean" is a song written and performed by Bruce Springsteen, from his 1984 album Born in the U.S.A. Although not released as a single, it reached number 36 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.
The Working on a Dream Tour was a concert tour by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, which began in April 2009 and ended in November 2009. It followed the late January 2009 release of the album Working on a Dream. This was the first full E Street Band tour without founding member Danny Federici, who died during the previous tour in 2008, and the final tour for founding member Clarence Clemons, who died in 2011.
"Waitin' on a Sunny Day" is a song by Bruce Springsteen that was first released in a recording with the E Street Band on his 2002 album The Rising. Although the song was not released as a single in the United States, it was released as a single in Europe, and was a hit in Sweden.
The Wrecking Ball World Tour was a concert tour by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band to promote Springsteen's seventeenth studio album, Wrecking Ball, which was released on March 5, 2012. It was the first tour for the E Street Band without founding member Clarence Clemons, who died on June 18, 2011. The worldwide tour in support of the album, which ended in September 2013, reached 26 countries, the most ever for one of Springsteen's tours. The tour resumed in January 2014 to promote Springsteen's new album, High Hopes, and went under that album's name.
The High Hopes Tour was a concert tour by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band with special guest guitarist Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. The tour was seen as a continuation of his previous tour and was in support of eighteenth studio album, High Hopes, which was released in January 2014.
Nassau Coliseum, New York 1980 is a live album by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, released in March 2015, and was the fourth official release through the Bruce Springsteen Archives. The show was originally recorded live at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, on December 31, 1980.
The River Tour was a concert tour by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in support of Springsteen's 2015 The Ties That Bind: The River Collection box set and in celebration of the 35th anniversary of Springsteen's 1980 album, The River. The River Tour ended in September 2016. Subsequently, the Summer '17 tour in Australia and New Zealand continued the tour using the same promotional image from the original legs.
Scottrade Center, St. Louis, MO, 8/23/08 is a live album by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, released on April 14, 2017. It is the twelfth official release through the Bruce Springsteen Archives. The show was originally recorded live at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, MO on August 23, 2008, during the Magic Tour.
The Springsteen and E Street Band 2023 Tour is an ongoing concert tour by American singer Bruce Springsteen and his backing band the E Street Band. The tour began on February 1, 2023, in Tampa, Florida; it marks the first time since 2017 that Springsteen and the E Street Band have toured together. The tour is currently scheduled to conclude on July 3, 2025, in Milan. Due to band member illnesses and Springsteen suffering his own health issues, twenty-four dates of the tour were postponed and were rescheduled for 2024. Four dates in May and June 2024 were also postponed due to vocal issues suffered by Springsteen.
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