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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Launch World Tour With Ecstatic, Emotional Tampa Show
by ANDY GREENE - rollingstone.com FEBRUARY 2, 2023
Their first concert in six years featured new songs, deep cuts, hits, and a moving speech about losing friends and the cruel passage of time.
DECADES FROM NOW, when historians and epidemiologists look back at the Covid era, they’ll probably have a hard time pinpointing the exact moment the pandemic came to an end in America and normal life resumed.
Some will probably point to the day in August 2021 when the vaccination rate hit 70 percent, while others will spotlight April 2022, when airlines dropped their mask mandate, or even Joe Biden’s 60 Minutes interview a few months later when he bluntly declared the pandemic over despite protests from members of his own administration. Others still might say that moment is still to come.
Bruce Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt share the mic, Feb. 1, 2023. PHIL DESIMONE FOR ROLLING STONE
Nobody in Tampa seemed headed toward the refund line as “No Surrender” segued into “Ghosts” from 2020’s Letter to You. By this point, any fears the E Street Band might need a few shows to shake off six years of rust were gone. They were locked in tight, beaming with joy, and feeding off the frenzied atmosphere in the crowd.
It was also a slightly different incarnation of the band that now features four backup singers (Curtis King, Michelle Moore, Lisa Lowell, Ada Dyer), a five-piece horn section (Curt Ramm, Barry Danielian, Eddie Manion, Ozzie Melendez, Jake Clemons), and percussionist Anthony Almonte in addition to the usual crew of Soozie Tyrell, Charlie Giordano, Steve Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren, Garry Tallent, Roy Bittan, Patti Scialfa, and Max Weinberg.
