In an unbilled performance Saturday night at the Light of Day festival in New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen took solemn time out during an otherwise celebratory 75-minute set to dedicate “The Promised Land” to the memory of slain Minneapolis woman Renee Good, decrying the “Gestapo tactics” that he said have resulted in a climate where citizens can be “murdered for exercising your American right to protest.”
Reciting a list of what he considers core American values, Springsteen then said that anyone who believes in them should “send a message to this president. And as the mayor of that city has said, ICE should get the fuck out of Minneapolis. So this one is for you, and the memory of the mother of three and American citizen Renee Good.”
He then launched, with the evening’s house band, into “The Promised Land,” the 1978 rocker that is one of his most enduring anthems and concert favorites.
The remarks about Good and ICE were disseminated on fan video (see below) and first reported in full by Jay Lustig of NJArts.net.
Springsteen began his “Promised Land” introduction by calling the “Darkness on the Edge of Town” favorite “his next song is “probably one of my greatest songs” and saying he wrote it “as an ode to American possibility … both to the beautiful but flawed country that we are, and to the country that we could be. Now, right now, we are living through incredibly critical times. The United States, the ideals and the values for which it stood for the past 250 years, is being tested as it has never been in modern times. Those values and those ideals have never been as endangered as they are right now.”
He continued, “So as we gather tonight in this beautiful display of love and care and thoughtfulness and community … if you believe in democracy, in liberty … if you believe that truth still matters, and that it’s worth speaking out, and it’s worth fighting for … if you believe in the power of the law and that no one stands above it … if you stand against heavily armed masked federal troops invading American cities, and using Gestapo tactics against our fellow citizens … if you believe you don’t deserve to be murdered for exercising your American right to protest … then send a message to this President.”
That message, he continued, was that “as the mayor of that city has said, ICE should get the fuck out of Minneapolis. So this one is for you, and the memory of the mother of three and American citizen Renee Good.”
Although Springsteen’s appearance at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, NJ was unadvertised, it was widely expected, or at least hoped for, as the musician has often appeared at the Light of Day Foundation’s Winterfest series of concerts, which benefit research for Parkinson’s disease. His friend Joe Grushecky’s Houserockers were the backing band for the evening, as they typically are for these benefits. Saturday’s show also featured guest turns from Gary U.S. Bonds, Willie Nile, Goo Goo Dolls frontman Johnny Rzeznik and Adam Weiner of Low Cut Connie.
Among the other songs performed during the hour-plus set he fronted, according to NJ.com, were the rarely performed “Lucky Town,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and full-band versions of two songs that are fresh on fans’ minds from the recent “Nebraska” boxed set, “Atlantic City” and “Johnny 99.”
It is no surprise to find Springsteen at odds with President Donald J. Trump, who has responded angrily to the rock superstar’s on-stage comments about his divisive actions. On an overseas tour that wrapped up last summer, Springsteen spoke out on a nightly basis, calling the current administation ““corrupt, incompetent and treasonous.”
In an interview with the New York Times in June, Springsteen called the current situation under Trump “an American tragedy… I think that it was the combination of the deindustrialization of the country and then the incredible increase in wealth disparity that left so many people behind. It was ripe for a demagogue. And while I can’t believe it was this moron that came along, he fit the bill for some people.” He added that “what we’ve been living through … is things that we all said, ‘This can’t happen here. This will never happen in America.’ And here we are.”
Trump has not yet responded to Springsteen’s latest remarks, but he took to his Truth Social account last year after learning of the rocker’s remarks on tour, writing: “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States. Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK … This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT.”