More than 16 years ago now, at the then relatively sprightly age of 59, Bruce Springsteen told me how “an oncoming train focuses the mind”. He was reflecting on his own getting older, and the gush of work he’d been driven to undertake of late. This was a checklist adding up to five new albums in as many years, and four full tours: two with the E Street Band, one with the Seeger Sessions Band and another solo for 2005’s Devils & Dust record. Having recently entered his 77th year, Springsteen has, if anything, redoubled his efforts, as if racing ever harder to fend off time’s relentless march. For just a while there, though, there were cracks showing in the armour, and reason enough to question his judgement.
Earlier this year, Springsteen affirmed, “I’m old. I don’t give a fuck what I do anymore. As you get older, you feel a lot freer.” That much seemed apparent at the outset of the Land Of Hopes And Dreams tour, the sprawling endeavour begun by Springsteen and the E Street Band on February 1, 2023 in Tampa, Florida and ending 129 shows later in Milan, Italy on July 3 this year. In the first year of the tour, 29 shows had to be postponed. First off, Springsteen was struck down with a peptic ulcer. Then he and various E Streeters went down with covid. Far more damaging to Springsteen’s blue-collar branding was the controversy surrounding the tour’s high ticket pricing.
