Tickets for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band in New Jersey go on sale May 18 at 10:00 am (photo courtesy brucespringsteen.net)
Who: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
What: Stadium leg of the River Tour
Where: MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey
When: Tickets on sale May 18 at 10:00 am for shows Tuesday, August 23, and Thursday, August 25, $68-$150, 7:30
Why: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s summer stadium sojourn arrives in New Jersey on August 23 & 25 for two shows at MetLife Stadium. The group finished the arena leg of the River Tour, in which they played the full River album in order every night, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on April 25. Listening to Bruce and the band play The River in its entirety was a transcendent experience; not only are Springsteen, pianist Roy Bittan, guitarists Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren, bassist Garry W. Tallent, drummer Max Weinberg, and relative newbies violinist Soozie Tyrell, organist Charlie Giordano, and saxophonist Jake Clemons thirty-five years older, but so are we, so the songs were performed with a stunning, revelatory nuance and received with heart-wrenching new emotions as well. Although the stadium setlists won’t include the full album anymore, Bruce is still focusing on the record; in Barcelona on May 14, he played twelve songs from the double LP, in addition to two dozen other classics, covers, and rarities. Tickets for the Jersey shows go on sale on May 18 at 10:00 am; the tour will also be making stops in Chicago, Washington, DC, Virginia Beach, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Foxborough.