After six-long years away, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band are officially back on the road. The band kicked off its 2023 tour last night (February 1st) at Tampa, Florida's Amalie Arena, and was supplemented by the four-piece E Street Horns — along with the three-person E Street Choir — for a two-hour and 38-minute show.
Bruce Springsteen explained that hitting the stage primed to excite and entertain is a huge part of what great live music is about: “It's the 'showtime' — y'know, I think people are frightened of the word 'show' sometimes, but that's what it is. And also, I think it's perceived when you say 'show' for some reason, it gets mixed up with the idea that it's false. But really, it's just a series of tools that allow you to communicate what you're trying to say to the audience, y'know? It's a bridge to the audience when employed correctly. And I love all my favorite entertainers — they were serious, they were clowns, and they did all kinds of — they were showmen, and that's just a part of our background. And it was essential when you played in a lot of bars in New Jersey where the audiences could be hostile.”
Steven Van Zandt explains that today, although Springsteen maps out a basic theme for each tour, he still leaves enough pockets for spontaneity to create its own magic: “At some point, he'll decide. . . I wanna talk about this this tour. This is the subject, this is the 'theme,' if you will, and then we fit the other stuff around that. But then there will be segments of the show where as always anything goes, and that'll change every night. We always change a good third, I'd say. There's spontaneity built in, y'know?”