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The last time Bruce Springsteen<\/a> played Philadelphia with the E Street Band, mortality was on his mind. <\/p>\n At two Citizens Bank Park shows in 2024<\/a> \u2014 both delayed a year due to illness \u2014 the centerpiece was \u201cLast Man Standing,\u201d inspired by the death of George Theiss, leader of Springsteen\u2019s teenage band the Castiles.<\/p>\n In a solo acoustic interlude, Springsteen, then 74, talked about how with age, \u201cdeath brings a certain clarity\u201d and \u201ca clearer vision of what living itself can mean\u201d while philosophically observing that grief \u201cis just the price we pay for having loved well.\u201d <\/p>\n Two years later, Springsteen is set to return to South Philly. <\/p>\n As he gets ready to play Xfinity Mobile Arena on May 30 on a \u201cLand Of Hope and Dreams\u201d tour date that was also delayed \u2014 by the Sixers\u2019 unexpected playoff victory over the Boston Celtics,<\/a> which pushed it back three weeks \u2014 Springsteen\u2019s outlook is not so sanguine. <\/p>\n With the E Street Band again in tow \u2014 expanded now to 18 members with the inclusion of Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello \u2014 the Jersey rocker will arrive in the city that\u2019s been a stronghold for him since the early \u201870s.<\/p>\n He comes back to town with renewed clarity of vision and a clear sense of purpose.<\/p>\n Only this time, he\u2019s not in such an elegiac frame of mind. And the urgent message he\u2019s keen to communicate has less to do with the passage of time and dimming of his days than a deep concern for the state of American democracy.<\/p>\n Not to mention the sense of civic duty that has given meaning to his life\u2019s work and helped him retain a relevant place in pop culture decades after his popularity peaked. <\/p>\n Springsteen was a dominant commercial force in the Born in the U.S.A. 1980s, but he hasn\u2019t had a Top 10 hit since \u201cStreets of Philadelphia\u201d in 1994.<\/p>\n We still talk about him like he matters, though. <\/p>\n That\u2019s because he does. <\/p>\n Not only on account of marathon shows that fill arenas and stadiums but also because \u2014 whether viewed as self-important, or profound \u2014 he sees it as his responsibility to make music that reflects and comments on the times, in the American vernacular music tradition that goes back to Woody Guthrie. <\/a><\/p>\n Springsteen in 2026 has a man-on-a-mission quality akin to the era of The Rising, the album he wrote in response to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.<\/p>\n In his 2016 Born to Run memoir,<\/a> Springsteen tells the story of how he was driving in a state of shock after the towers fell. A guy who recognized him yelled, \u201cBruce, we need you!\u201d That shout instigated The Rising, and focused a recording career that had been in midlife malaise.<\/p>\n A quarter of a century later, Springsteen is again responding to what he sees as a call of duty and a need felt by his fan base \u2014 or at least those whose left-leaning politics mirror his own. <\/p>\n The job, as he sees it, is to put forth a communal, compassionate vision of what America is and can be; an idea that that runs counter to a MAGA world view espoused by President Donald Trump<\/a>. <\/p>\n (That work will continue after this tour is over when the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music in Long Branch, N.J., opens<\/a> with \u201cMusic America: The Songs That Shaped Us\u201d concerts on June 4 and 5. Springsteen will be joined by artists like Public Enemy, Jackson Browne, Mavis Staples, Jon Bon Jovi, and Valerie June in shows billed as \u201cCelebrating 250 Years of American Music.\u201d) <\/p>\n In 2024, Springsteen campaigned for Kamala Harris<\/a>, including an appearance at the Liacouras Center in North Philly with John Legend and Barack Obama<\/a>. But the shows he played in the run-up to the presidential election didn\u2019t put particular emphasis on his political views. The only overtly political song he performed was \u201cLong Walk Home,\u201d a mournful tune from his (underrated) 2007 album Magic whose protagonist no longer recognizes the America he grew up in. <\/p>\n It\u2019s subtly moving, and has remained in Springsteen\u2019s protest-focused setlist on this arena tour, which began in Minneapolis in March and was supposed to end with its one outdoor stadium show on May 27 at Nationals Park in Washington. <\/p>\n (Instead, the Philly date is now the final show, which Springsteenophiles hope increases the chances of old school treats added to the setlist for day one fans. Can we reach back to 1973 for \u201cFor You\u201d or \u201cRosalita?\u201d Or at least a \u201cStreets of Philadelphia?\u201d C\u2019mon Boss!)<\/p>\n But back to \u201cLong Walk Home,\u201d and the notion of subtlety. Springsteen has been anything but subtle in his response to the second Trump presidency. <\/p>\n A year ago, on the first night of the \u201cLand of Hope and Dreams\u201d tour in Manchester, England, he walked onstage and called the administration \u201ccorrupt, incompetent, and treasonous.\u201d The president hit back, <\/a>calling Springsteen \u201cHighly Overrated\u201d as well as \u201cnot a talented guy \u2014 just a pushy obnoxious JERK\u201d and \u201cdumb as a rock,\u201d among other insults.<\/p>\n Since the American tour began, Springsteen\u2019s critique has gotten more detailed. <\/a>He\u2019s added \u201creckless\u201d and \u201cracist\u201d to his opening remarks, spoken out against a Justice Department that \u201chas thrown its independence away\u201d and decried the dismantling of foreign assistance agency USAID.<\/p>\n None of that is particularly subtle, and neither is \u201cStreets of Minneapolis,\u201d the anti-ICE song Springsteen wrote the day protester Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents, outraged at the government\u2019s initial claims that placed the blame on Pretti and Renee Good for their own deaths.<\/a><\/p>\n When he first performed the song in Minneapolis in January, Springsteen said he asked Morello if the song \u2014 written in the broadside tradition of Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and the civil rights protests of the 1960s \u2014 was \u201ctoo soapboxy.\u201d <\/p>\n Morello, who plays a guitar emblazoned with the words \u201cArm the Homeless,\u201d told him not to worry. \u201cNuance is wonderful,\u201d he said,<\/a> \u201cBut sometimes you have to kick them in the teeth.\u201d <\/p>\n The show that Springsteen and the E Street Band will put on next weekend then will aim to be a teeth-kicking affair. It won\u2019t be a radical departure. The setlist will include many longtime Springsteen crowd-pleasers like \u201cBadlands,\u201d \u201cHungry Heart,\u201d and the Patti Smith cowrite \u201cBecause The Night.\u201d <\/p>\n But it will also make room for both Springsteen-penned protest songs \u201cThe Ghost of Tom Joad\u201d and \u201cAmerican Skin\u201d and choice covers such as Edwin Starr\u2019s emphatically anti-war \u201cWar.\u201d<\/p>\n It will also include the tour\u2019s title song, a gospel-fired anthem that, in the year of the nation\u2019s Semiquincentennial<\/a>, invites all aboard a train where \u201cdreams will not be thwarted\u201d and \u201cfaith will be rewarded.\u201d <\/p>\n In the opening remarks Springsteen has made on earlier tour dates, he has said that he and the E Street Band are performing \u201cin celebration and in defense of our American ideals, democracy, our Constitution, and our sacred American promise, the America that I love, the America that I\u2019ve written about for 50 years.\u201d <\/p>\n There\u2019s fear at the heart of that statement. The belief that those ideals are under serious threat, and also \u2014 on a personal level for Springsteen \u2014 that a lifetime of work in support of those ideals will have been in vain.<\/p>\n So it stands to reason that an impassioned three-hour Springsteen and the E Street Band call to join him in his fight \u2014 in the city that helped launch his career<\/a>, and where those American ideals were born \u2014 will be a night to remember.<\/p>\n