{"id":594094,"date":"2026-04-08T20:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T20:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/594094\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T20:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T20:12:13","slug":"bruce-springsteen-covers-clashs-clampdown-for-first-time-since-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/594094\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Springsteen Covers Clash&#8217;s &#8216;Clampdown&#8217; For First Time Since &#8217;14"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Springsteen traded off lead vocals with Tom Morello, and he placed emphasis on the line \u201cin these days of evil presidents\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/bruce-springsteen\/\" id=\"auto-tag_bruce-springsteen\" data-tag=\"bruce-springsteen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bruce Springsteen<\/a> and the E Street Band\u2019s politically charged Land of Hope and Dreams Tour touched down at L.A.\u2019s Kia Forum on Tuesday night. Four songs into the show, they threw the crowd a big surprise by dusting off <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/the-clash\/\" id=\"auto-tag_the-clash\" data-tag=\"the-clash\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Clash<\/a>\u2018s \u201cClampdown\u201d for the first time in 12 years.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAll six previous renditions of \u201cClampdown\u201d took place in April and May 2014, when Tom Morello was touring with the E Street Band in the place of Steve Van Zandt, who was busy filming the television show Lilyhammer. Morello is back on tour with the E Street Band right now, and he traded off lead vocals with Springsteen as they tore through the 1979 Clash classic. When Springsteen delivered the line \u201cin these days of evil presidents,\u201d the music briefly stopped to really emphasize each word.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe \u201cClampdown\u201d cover was the only deviation from the set list of the previous show in Portland, Oregon. And the only different song they played on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-live-reviews\/bruce-springsteen-tour-opener-minneapolis-set-list-1235539982\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> opening night in Minneapolis<\/a> was a cover of \u201cPurple Rain\u201d as a tribute to Prince.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe only other Clash song in Springsteen\u2019s live repertoire is \u201cLondon Calling.\u201d He played it at the 2003 Grammys alongside Dave Grohl, Elvis Costello, Steve Van Zandt, Pete Thomas, and Tony Kanal as a tribute to Joe Strummer, and then three times in 2009.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t\u201cClampdown\u201d entered the set during the wild \u201cStump the Band\u201d era of 2014, where Springsteen pulled song requests from signs in the audience and broke out surprising covers like \u201cStayin\u2019 Alive\u201d by the Bee Gees, \u201cJump\u201d by Van Halen, and even \u201cRoyals\u201d by Lorde.<\/p>\n<p>\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tStarting with his Springsteen on Broadway residency in 2017, Springsteen has preferred a more rigid set that tells a thematic story through his song catalog. The 2023-24 Letter to You tour was about mortality, losing friends, and making the most of our remaining time. The ongoing Land of Hope and Dreams Tour is a furious reaction to the Trump administration following the deaths of Ren\u00e9e Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe tour continues Thursday with a second show at the Kia Forum. It wraps up May 27 at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. It\u2019s the only stadium show of the run, and it\u2019s likely to be one for the ages.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Springsteen traded off lead vocals with Tom Morello, and he placed emphasis on the line \u201cin these days&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,42076,134,136,234927],"class_list":{"0":"post-594094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bruce-springsteen","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-the-clash"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}