Still The Boss
Originally published on www.thirdsonginpodcast.com (May 7, 2026)
Review of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the United Center, April 29, 2026
As any regular listener of Third Song In (and anyone who has been within 10 feet of me) knows, I am an older guy. Last weekend made it official, as I celebrated my 60th birthday. This milestone has certainly wiped out any ability to deny my old-man-ness. Although—and this is how an old man brags—I am happy to report that I don’t take a single prescription medication on a regular basis. No blood pressure meds, no prostate pills, no cholesterol-controlling substances. If that doesn’t make me young, at least it allows me to enjoy these golden years more than some others do. I like to say that I am “young for my age,” and not just due to my childish behavior.
That being said, I am no Bruce Springsteen. That dude is almost 15 years older than me, and he is still cranking out anthems and stalking a stage like he’s 30 years old. I was fortunate enough to score a ticket to the Springsteen show at Chicago’s United Center the Wednesday before my birthday, (everlasting thanks to Seth and Andy!), and watching the Boss certainly put me in my place.
This guy played and sang for over three hours straight! Like it was 1988! He never left the stage–in fact, at a point midway through the show, everyone else left the stage as Bruce picked up an acoustic guitar and sang and played “House of a Thousand Guitars.” The rest of the band got some well-earned rest and the Boss just kept on entertaining. The man is 74 years of age and he never took a significant break the entire time. Meanwhile, I got a little winded walking up to my seat at the start of the show.
Bruce sounded great. His voice was strong and clear. He covered every inch of the stage as he ran through more songs than I could count at the time. (27–I looked it up afterward). As usual, he changed guitars frequently, and many times he tossed them 10 feet or more to the techs at the back of the stage who were tasked with keeping him armed with the appropriate axes. The man is in great physical condition.
The E Street Band, by the way, were outstanding as well. I counted anywhere from 17 to 20 members on the stage at any one time (kind of hard to tell, because many of them were constantly changing positions and spots on the floor). The horn section was rock solid and the backup singers were enchanting. Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine) has been playing with the E Street Band on and off for almost 20 years. Since the last time I saw Bruce live was almost twenty-FIVE years ago, I had never seen them together live on stage, and it was a treat. Morello is an amazing complement to the band, and to Bruce himself. Playing in front of his hometown crowd (Morello is from Libertyville, Illinois, in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago), he energized the place with his phenomenal guitar playing and his frequent vocals standing alongside Bruce throughout the show. His duet with Springsteen on an amped-up version of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” was the highlight of the night for me. If there was any nod at all to the Boss’s aging vocal cords, it seemed to be his willingness to allow Morello to help carry the load on six of the last eight songs of the night. Those songs did not suffer from Morello’s addition, and it definitely allowed Bruce and the whole band to work to a powerful finish for the night.
The OG E Street Band fared pretty well, also. Little Steven and Roy Bittan in particular held their own amongst the newer, younger players like Morello and Jake Clemons on saxophone. If there was any player that seemed to show his age a bit, it was drummer Max Weinberg. There were a few moments where he sounded just a bit off compared to his metronome-like playing in the prime of E Street. I don’t want to be too hard on the guy, however. After all, he is a 75-year old man playing the most physically taxing instrument on the stage. When push comes to shove, I wouldn’t trade Mighty Max for a drummer half his age. The show also featured a heartfelt and powerful “in memoriam” segment, celebrating former keyboardist Danny Federici and The Big Man, Clarence Clemons. I wasn’t crying, you were crying.
As you are no doubt aware, even Springsteen fandom has become an indicator of personal politics these days. For his part, Bruce has embraced his role as a voice of the opposition. He spent most of his crowd work making it clear that he has no use for the current regime or its treatment of the rest of us. However, Bruce’s greatest statement of opposition to the current political climate was probably the set list for the show itself.
Here it is:
War (cover of The Temptations), Born in the U.S.A., Death to My Hometown, Clampdown (cover of the Clash), No Surrender, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Streets of Minneapolis, The Promised Land, Two Hearts, Hungry Heart, Youngstown, Murder Incorporated, American Skin (41 Shots), Long Walk Home, House of a Thousand Guitars, My City of Ruins, Because the Night, Wrecking Ball, The Rising, The Ghost of Tom Joad, Badlands, Land of Hope and Dreams
Followed (rather quickly) by the encore: American Land, Born to Run, Dancing in the Dark, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, Chimes of Freedom (cover of Bob Dylan).
Although there clearly were a few songs chosen to satisfy the old-timers in the house (thank God for “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and “Born to Run”), each song seemed carefully chosen to remind us of the struggles we’ve endured and the ones we face now. Every song he played carried a heightened meaning for me, and, if my observation of my fellow fans in the upper deck of the arena is to be believed, all of them as well. Each song seemed to be a call to all of us to keep our eyes open and stay prepared to protect our rights and those of our friends and neighbors in light of creeping fascism and oligarchy. For the careful observer, the main lesson to be taken from a review of the set list is that this is not new–Bruce Springsteen has been singing about these things for decades.
I’ve been listening to Springsteen since I was 15 years old. I started with my uncle’s copy of The River and then tunneled my way both backward and forward. I tried to listen to everything he (and the E Street Band) made. Those lyrics and that voice became to me the story of America. Through every iteration and every musical detour, every studio album and every live recording, Bruce told the tales of everyday Americans fighting for the right to exist in a world that made existence harder at every turn. I saw him live a few times over the years, and each time I’ve come away from the show with the feeling that Bruce was singing about me, to me. It is inspiring that this icon, a decade-and-a-half older than me, is still willing to be the tip of the spear for the America we have tried so hard to build. I’m so happy I got to see him out there singing and playing for us once again.
Tom Polacek (May 7, 2026)