Brooklyn 14.5 2026 #SpringsteenTour2026

Earlier this year, Oliver and I had more or less agreed that we would skip travelling to the US in 2026. The political climate feels severe and, even from a distance, it affects the whole world. Neither of us really felt particularly eager to contribute to the current administration by spending our money there.

Then Bruce Springsteen announced the Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour #NoKings. Within hours we were studying calendars and flight prices like two people whose general, human principles had become surprisingly flexible.

As a teacher I want to avoid taking time off in the middle of a semester. Luckily, Ascension Day came to the rescue. With Thursday being a bank holiday in both Sweden and Germany, and Friday a Brückentag, I only needed to take Wednesday day off work to make the trip happen. So we packed our tickets and our suitcases and headed for NYC.

Fast forward to May and there we were, walking into the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Having seen Bruce so many times before, we usually have a pretty good idea of what to expect when the lights go down. We know the routines, the usual crowd-pleasers, and the general energy of an E Street crowd. This time was no exception, as I had already seen setlists and videos from previous shows on social media. But I was looking forward to this one even more because it would probably be our only Springsteen concert of the year. In fact, after the tour ended in Milan last summer, we didn’t even know if there would ever be another one. For this specific show, I was also especially eager to see what Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) could bring to the table.

I had read that the setlist had been carefully constructed and that, throughout the evening, there was going to be a recurring message about refusing fear, refusing passivity and refusing to surrender to hopelessness. Obviously, not everyone in the fan base agrees with his views, but it’s never been a secret where Springsteen stands politically. Personally, I don’t separate myself from his stance on important issues. On the contrary, I agree with it and I welcome it. In fact, I think it is important that every person that has a public voice uses it if they can and want to.

As the show went on, I got the growing feeling that it wasn’t really aimed at me or the other fans who had traveled from abroad. The real target audience was the Americans in the room. It felt like Bruce was trying to wake people up. Using for example My City of Ruins and its powerful “Rise up” chant to encourage them to stand up for what is right and push for meaningful political change in their own country and for the good of the world.

With the final show originally planned to take place in Washington DC, only a few miles from the White House, this tour is a deliberate journey toward the political center of the storm. Due to a postponed Philadelphia show, however, the tour will now end in Philly instead. That somehow feels equally fitting, considering the city’s role as the birthplace of modern American democracy.

Now to my impressions of the show. Like I said, the setlist itself is carefully constructed around, as I see it, different emotional states. Anger was obviously one of them, used as a powerful way to shake off that passivity. Bruce set the tone for this immediately by opening the entire show with War, launching straight into it from his opening speech so that his last spoken word became the first word of the song. It was loud, aggressive, and a great start. The anger returned later in the show, but this time it felt darker and more bitter. It started with Youngstown and Murder Incorporated, which then shifted into the haunting and provocative American Skin (41 Shots) with its slow-building instrumentation that gives a kind of a religious feeling. During the song, Jake Clemons stood with his hands held high as if at gunpoint. The sequence made a heavy block in the middle of the set.

The show wasn’t just a political rally; it was still an E Street party too. Right after a run of more serious tracks like Streets of Minneapolis and The Promised Land, the show turned to the lighter, fun moments. We got Two Hearts, with Bruce and Steve Van Zandt singing microphone-to-microphone, followed by Hungry Heart. As always, the crowd took the entire first verse of Hungry Heart and they did a great job. That said, I almost always feel a bit sorry for the person standing directly in front of me on shows. I absolutely love to sing along and loudly too, but my singing voice is definitely not my strongest suit. 😅

For me personally, seeing Tom Morello join the stage was a big highlight. I still remember hearing him play a stunning guitar solo during The Ghost of Tom Joad in a show back in 2008, so I knew what he was capable of bringing to an E Street lineup. He was an important part of the show, joining Bruce and the band for 10 songs in total. He bookended the night perfectly, aced the loud, aggressive opening run of War, Born in the U.S.A., Death to My Hometown, and Clampdown, before returning to help close out the main setlist and kick off the encores with American Land. Having that extra firepower on guitar for tracks like American Skin (41 Shots) and The Ghost of Tom Joad gave an incredible amount of energy that seemed to transfer to Bruce.

As for the encores, they were classic and very fun. I just love Born to Run and American Land was so much fun with the whole band standing right at the edge of the stage. Even keyboarder Charlie Giordano and Roy Bittan turned up strapped with an accordion each. It was a great, high-energy way to wrap up the night.

As for the overall experience at the Barclays Center, Oliver and I were standing in the back of the pit, which is our usual spot. The pit was quite small, much smaller than the stadium shows in Europe last year, where the pit took up almost half of the general admission area. The nice thing about a smaller pit is that you still feel very close to the stage, even from the back where there is actually room to dance and jump around, which I like to do.

That less-busy feeling in the back of the pit changed about two or three songs into the show, when we noticed a lot of people without wristbands being let into the pit, making it noticeably more crowded. We knew, of course, that Bruce would be coming our way later on; on these smaller indoor shows, there is almost always a standard runway between the front pit area and the floor seats behind it. Sure enough, during Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, he circled the pit and passed just a few meters away from us.

Right at the end of the main set, Oliver tapped my shoulder and pointed to a familiar face standing only a few meters away to our right. It was Jon Landau. When I glanced over at him, he looked back and smiled gently (or at least, that’s how I like to remember it).

All in all, it was a terrific night in Brooklyn and just to prove that standing in the back of a small pit has its perks, I’m wrapping up this post with a few photos from our spot.