{"id":556015,"date":"2026-03-31T11:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/556015\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T11:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:03:07","slug":"bruce-springsteen-kicks-off-us-tour-in-minneapolis-in-tribute-to-protesters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/556015\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Springsteen kicks off US tour in Minneapolis in tribute to protesters"},"content":{"rendered":"

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Bruce Springsteen returns Tuesday to the \u201cStreets of Minneapolis.\u201d After honoring its residents in song for their courage in standing up against the federal immigration crackdown, he\u2019s using the city to launch his latest U.S. tour.<\/a><\/p>\n

The New Jersey rocker<\/a> released \u201cStreets of Minneapolis\u201d<\/a> in late January amid the nationwide outcry<\/a> over the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti<\/a> by federal officers. On Tuesday night, the Boss and the E Street Band are expected to perform it when they take the stage at Target Center to kick off the \u201cLand of Hope & Dreams American Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis tour is going to be political and very topical about what\u2019s going on in the country,\u201d Springsteen told the Minnesota Star Tribune in an interview published Wednesday. \u201cMinneapolis and St. Paul, that was the place that I wanted to begin it, and I wanted to end it in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

Springsteen told a New York City audience on March 23, during a 30th anniversary celebration for the independent news program \u201cDemocracy Now!,\u201d that his tour will head next to Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles, \u201ctwo other cities where they had to deal with ICE, ICE\u2019s terror.\u201d It ends May 27 in Washington, D.C., where he said he\u2019ll have a few choice words for the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cStreets of Minneapolis\u201d was one in a series of tributes released by international artists and countless local performers as thousands of Minnesotans took to the streets. Springsteen played a solo version Saturday during the national flagship \u201cNo Kings\u201d rally at the state Capitol in St. Paul.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis past winter, federal troops brought death and terror to the streets of Minneapolis,\u201d Springsteen told a crowd estimated by the Minnesota State Patrol to be 100,000 people. \u201cWell, they picked the wrong city. The power and the solidarity of the people of Minneapolis, of Minnesota, was an inspiration to the entire country. Your strength and your commitment told us that this is still America, and this reactionary nightmare, and these invasions of American cities will not stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gritty video that Springsteen released for \u201cStreets of Minneapolis\u201d captured a city under siege by 3,000 federal officers, which President Donald Trump\u2019s administration called its largest immigration enforcement action anywhere in the country. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll take our stand for this land\/And the stranger in our midst\/We\u2019ll remember the names of those who died\/On the streets of Minneapolis,\u201d Springsteen sang.<\/p>\n

The video shows masked and armed agents in tactical gear, including the face of the operation, Greg Bovino,<\/a> who was pulled out of Minneapolis amid the backlash and is preparing to retire. It also shows 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos,<\/a> wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, surrounded by immigration officers, whose photo stirred outrage around the world.<\/p>\n

And it also showed the makeshift memorials that sprang up where Good and Pretti were killed, interspersed with clips of the final moments of the two as they confronted officers. It climaxes with video of thousands of residents who filled the streets of Minneapolis as they chanted \u201cICE Out!\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no love lost<\/a> between Springsteen and Trump, who have long feuded. During his European tour<\/a> last year, Springsteen slammed<\/a> the Trump administration as \u201ccorrupt, incompetent and treasonous,\u201d and denounced Trump as an \u201cunfit president\u201d leading a \u201crogue government\u201d of people who have \u201cno concern or idea for what it means to be deeply American.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, in turn, has called Springsteen a \u201cdried out prune of a rocker.\u201d In a social media post<\/a>, the president once wrote, \u201cNever liked him, never liked his music or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he\u2019s not a talented guy \u2014 just a pushy, obnoxious JERK,\u201d he wrote on social media.<\/p>\n

Springsteen has long emphasized socially conscious music, which brings up another Minnesota connection. In 1984, when he released his album \u201cBorn in the U.S.A.,\u201d with its title cut, an often-misunderstood lament of a disillusioned Vietnam veteran, he kicked off his tour in St. Paul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNEAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Bruce Springsteen returns Tuesday to the \u201cStreets of Minneapolis.\u201d After honoring its residents in song…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[203372,2224,16755,2356,3506,3505,12,88,793,139325,790,208119,16950,6429,6661,216,1997,3831,2232,111,191965,24265,795],"class_list":["post-556015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-alex-pretti","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-bruce-springsteen","tag-california","tag-dc-wire","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-general-news","tag-greg-bovino","tag-immigration","tag-liam-conejo-ramos","tag-minneapolis","tag-minnesota","tag-mn-state-wire","tag-music","tag-new-jersey","tag-or-state-wire","tag-oregon","tag-politics","tag-renee-good","tag-terrorism","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}