Bruce Springsteen’s Friday concert has been moved to May 30 to accommodate a Sixers-Knicks playoff game
The Sixers win means they and Bruce Springsteen were scheduled for the same night at Xfinity Mobile Arena. Something had to give.
The 76ers’ win left many Philadelphians overjoyed over the weekend, but some devoted Bruce Springsteen fans may not be among them. The Boss was set to play in Philly on May 8 at the Xfinity Mobile Arena, but the Sixers’ Round 1 NBAplayoff win has pushed the concert to May 30.
The team will face the New York Knicks at 7 p.m. Friday at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Springsteen and the E Street Band were scheduled to play that same night, just 30 minutes later, for the 13th stop of their Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour.
Early Sunday morning, the Boss’ website posted the change, with May 30 chosen as the new date, and a note: “All tickets for the previous date will remain valid for the new date.”
The Xfinity Mobile Arena social channels corroborated the shift, leaving some fans in the comments wondering if they were getting pranked.
“What a joke,” a user wrote, as others took to Reddit with a more hopeful outlook.
“What a beautiful way to find out the Sixers beat the Celtics,” a fan commented. “This is great news[,] I might be able to snag something cheap for the rescheduled show,” another added.
The move of the concert to May 30 creates a big concert weekend pile up in Philadelphia. That date coincides with the first day of the Roots Picnic. This year, the festival presented by the Philly hip-hop crew and Tonight Show house band is moving from the Mann Center to Belmont Plateau with its biggest headliner ever: Jaÿ-Z.
This will be the second time that Springsteen and Jaÿ-Z both played high-profile shows in the city on the same weekend. Back in 2012, Jaÿ-Z headlined his own Made in America festival in its first year on the Ben Franklin Parkway on Labor Day weekend, and Springsteen and the E Street Band played two nights at Citizens Bank Park in South Philly that same weekend.
This is the second time in recent years that Springsteen and the E Street Band have had to postpone a Philadelphia date at the last minute.
In August of 2023, he called off two shows at Citizens Bank Park just hours before the start off the first due to an illness that was later revealed to be peptic ulcer disease. In that case, fans has to wait a full year for the Boss to return, for two shows in August 2024.
When it comes to concerts and sports time clashes at Xfinity Mobile Arena, not everyone was as fortunate as Springsteen fans with their concert’s change.
In early April, Florence + the Machine fans saw their Philly stop of a tour moved to Atlantic City after a Flyers game was scheduled for the same evening at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
