Bruce Springsteen River Tour to flow to Philly in February
The Boss is coming to Philadelphia once again. Perennial rock favorite Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band announced Friday that the River Tour, a nine-week U.S. jaunt kicking off Jan. 19 in Pittsburgh, will come Feb. 12 to the Wells Fargo Center.
The Boss is coming to Philadelphia once again.
Perennial rock favorite Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band announced Friday that the River Tour, a nine-week U.S. jaunt kicking off Jan. 19 in Pittsburgh, will come Feb. 12 to the Wells Fargo Center.
Also Friday, the band released The Ties That Bind: The River Collection, a 4-CD, 52-track archival collection documenting the creation of the seminal 1980 album The River. Ahead of the tour, the band will appear Dec. 19 on Saturday Night Live (Springsteen's third appearance on the show) to give fans a taste.
The tour is actually the second River Tour for Springsteen, 66, and mates. When The River was released, the band went on a storied 140-date marathon international tour, giving still-discussed shows that could run four hours and more. That tour - and the album, which enjoyed almost immediate critical adulation - formed much of the basis for the band's enduring global reputation. It lasted for almost a year, until September 1981.
For the 2016 River Tour, E Street will feature the steady lineup of latter years: original member (since 1972) Garry Tallent on bass guitar; Roy Bittan ('74) on piano and synthesizer; Max Weinberg ('74) on drums; Stevie Van Zandt ('75) on guitar and vocals; Nils Lofgren ('84) on guitar and vocals; Patti Scialfa ('84; married Springsteen in 1991) on guitar and vocals; along with Soozie Tyrell (2002) on violin, guitar, and vocals; Charlie Giordano ('08) on keyboards; and newest member Jake Clemons (2012; nephew of original E Street Band member Clarence Clemons) on sax.
Springsteen has released new music steadily throughout his career - solo and with various lineups. As the E Street Band has become a legacy act, it also has become one of the biggest moneymakers in rock-and-roll history. According to Billboard Boxscore, the band has taken in $1 billion since 2000. As a touring act, Springsteen and E Street have shown astonishing physical chops and equally astonishing ability to draw. The Wrecking Ball and High Hopes tour runs of 2012-14 earned $422 million between them, playing to an audience of more than four million for 157 shows.
This will be the band's first outing since last year's High Hopes Tour. The band skipped Philadelphia for that one (playing Hershey and Pittsburgh), so this will be the act's first appearance in Philadelphia since it played four dates in March and September 2012 for Wrecking Ball. This will be the band's 12th appearance at Wells Fargo.
All dates on the coming tour will be mixed and posted for download within days of each performance, on Live.BruceSpringsteen.net.
Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday - at ComcastTIX.com, at 800-298-4200, and at the Wells Fargo Center box office.
215-854-4406@jtimpane