A fan responds to Bruce Springsteen fulfilling her request for a guitar pick during a concert at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y., on Tuesday, May 5, 2026.
John Breunig/Hearst Connecticut Media Group
Bruce Springsteen walks among audience members during his concert at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y., on Tuesday, May 5, 2026.
John Breunig/Hearst Connecticut Media Group
Bruce Springsteen built his entire current tour as a declaration against the policies of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. (that is still the correct address, right? Has the street been rebranded yet? It’s getting hard to keep track).
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Springsteen sprinkled some F-bombs into presidential chatter during his show at UBS Arena on Long Island Tuesday night.
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Except these comments were about a different president.
“To the guy who keeps yelling ‘Obama’ … He’s not @$#%& here, man,” Springsteen growled in his impromptu introduction to “House Of A Thousand Guitars.” “He’s … not … @$#%& … here. I don’t know where the @$#%& he is. He might be in Hawaii or somethin.’ I’ll do this for you.”
So former Prez Barack Obama got exactly one more name-check than Donald Trump did. Not that Springsteen didn’t talk about Trump. He just stuck to the “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” tactic, which I believe he nicked from Obama.
“We have a president who says he wishes nothing but ill upon those who he disagrees with,” Springsteen said near the end of the show. “Now I don’t want to live that way.”
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Trump, of course, has been roasting Springsteen by calling him a “total loser,” a “very boring singer” and a “dried up prune” (I wonder what Trump is saving for the encores?).
I do want to thank the president for encouraging a MAGA boycott of Springsteen. It made the evening a lot more pleasant.
If we’re being honest, there have always been fans at Springsteen shows who lean hard on the “shut up and sing” reflex when politics comes up (which is pretty often if they’d shut up and listen). For the first time in my 40-plus years at Springsteen shows, that was not an issue on Tuesday.
I was editor of my college paper in 1984 when Springsteen offered a bitter rebuttal to his then-new “Born in the U.S.A.” being co-opted by President Ronald Reagan on the campaign trail. Springsteen was about to turn 35, and it really was the first time he drew big headlines for his politics.
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Five years earlier, Springsteen spent the final days of his 20s performing at the “No Nukes” concerts at Madison Square Garden. Surrounded by Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt, and others, Springsteen seemed like a neophyte as an activist. He never spoke about the cause from the stage, preferring to let his music do the talking.
When he returns to the MSG stage this week, Springsteen will certainly demonstrate how much has changed since 1979. Only three songs seem likely to cross the 47-year bridge — “The Promised Land,” “Badlands” and “Born to Run.”
Those warhorses will be joined by a setlist of some of the grittiest songs from the Springsteen catalog. During Tuesday’s show at UBS, Springsteen’s lyrics shaped a map in my imagination. As he rallied for the nation’s future, he took us on a tour around the states from the “Streets of Minneapolis” to “Youngstown” to Baltimore (“Hungry Heart”) to the California/Mexico border (“Ghost of Tom Joad”).
And sure, we made a few stops in Springsteen’s native Garden State. But we spent a lot of time in the Big Apple.
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• A pause at Wheeler Avenue in the Bronx during “American Skin (41 Shots)” to revisit the police shooting of Amadou Diallo in 1999 (the tension at the MSG shows when he debuted the song in 2000 has never been matched).
• A pause at Ground Zero to mourn the dead in “The Rising.”
• A spiritual return to Ellis Island for “American Land.”
For all his roots in roots rock, though, Springsteen also seemed to embrace the punk spirit of the late ’70s. It helped that he dueted on the Clash’s “Clampdown” with Tom Morello, whose band Rage Against the Machine covered the song at its first live show in 1991. The lyrics challenge the next generation to stand up to the status quo.
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More artists need to heed that call. Springsteen is holding out a torch, an invitation for others to carry forward.
Springsteen ended the show with another cover, “Chimes of Freedom,” which reminded us that its author — Bob Dylan — is a different brand of punk.
During the “No Nuke” gig, Springsteen did a playful tribute to James Brown as he feigned being too exhausted to carry on. At age 76 on Tuesday, he seemed a wee bit weary for real when he sat on the edge of the stage after logging a few hours and miles with guitar in hand.
“The E Street Band was built for hard times and we will make it through,” he promised. “We will make it through because America renews itself.
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“From the beginning America was born out of disagreement. It’s an argument. An ongoing blessed, sacred argument about what course the country should take. We argue about these things while still recognizing our common humanity, our dignity and our unity.”
Then Springsteen asked his fellow pilgrims to “find a way to take aggressive, peaceful action to defend our country’s ideals.”
America should always be an argument. Bruce Springsteen reminds us the argument is still worth having 250 years after the USA was born.
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John Breunig is editorial page editor. jbreunig@hearstmediact.com; twitter.com/johnbreunig.