Yesterday (May 14), Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band performed in Manchester, England, to start the final leg of a tour that they kicked off more than two years ago. To open the show, Springsteen gave an impassioned speech about President Donald J. Trump and his administration. “The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock’n’roll in dangerous times,” Springsteen said. “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration. Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism, and let freedom ring!” He and the band then launched into Wrecking Ball’s “Land of Hope and Dreams.”
Later, before playing The Rising’s “My City of Ruins,” Springsteen said, “There’s some very weird, strange, and dangerous shit going on out there right now. In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.” He concluded, “The America that I’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real, and, regardless of its faults, is a great country with a great people. So we’ll survive this moment. Now, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, ‘In this world, there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there’s enough.’ Let’s pray.” Watch all of Springsteen’s remarks in the video below.
Springsteen has spoken out against Donald Trump for the better part of a decade. He also endorsed his opponent in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Springsteen recently rebranded the final leg of the tour as the Land of Hope and Dreams Tour. It will find him and the E Street Band performing in the United Kingdom and Europe in May, June, and July. The final show is set to take place on Thursday, July 3, in Milan, Italy. See the tour dates below.
Ahead of his tour with the E Street Band, which began in February 2023, Springsteen released Only the Strong Survive. Soon, he’ll share a ton of previously unreleased music in the new collection Tracks II: The Lost Albums.