Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band
Co-Op Live, Manchester, May 14, 2025
“The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock and roll in dangerous times,” Bruce Springsteen tells 23,000 fans in Manchester tonight, as he takes to the stage in the city for the first time since 2016 on the opening night of his Land Of Hopes And Dreams tour. Standing underneath a single spotlight on a blackened stage, Springsteen delivers his most powerful statement yet about his thoughts on the current US president, all before strumming a single note.
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“My home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about and has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration,” Springsteen says solemnly to a chorus of supportive cheers. “Tonight, we ask all of you to believe in democracy and the best of our American spirit to rise with us: raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring.”
Sure enough, fans raise their voices in unison when Springsteen launches into the set’s first song – an emotive rendition of 1999’s Land Of Hope And Dreams – and one of the most political sets of his career. “This is for our dear leader” he bites just a few songs later, ahead of the live debut of 2020’s Rainmaker, a subversive song about a conman who promises the world and preys on the vulnerable. Springsteen’s anger is as palpable as his pain tonight, with songs frequently darting between rage and mournfulness.
Long Walk Home from 2007’s Magic is an early standout on the mournfulness side of things, with Springsteen introducing it as “a prayer for my country.” There’s a desperation to his delivery as he unpacks in real time what’s happened to the America he’s written about for 50 years. It’s heard perhaps most poignantly when he sings “Tryna figure out what went wrong”, his voice cracking with emotion. On a stunning solo re-working of House Of A Thousand Guitars, the line “the criminal clown has stolen the throne” has one of the loudest cheers of the night thanks to a snarling delivery from Springsteen.
The songs in the setlist tonight are markedly different from those on recent tours. Those that did make the cut seemed to emphasise Springsteen’s faith in the US values he still tries to hold dear, while others shone a stark light on the dispossessed like Murder Incorporated, which receives its first live outing since 2017. Many songs have a fiery Celtic or gospel undertone, too. Perhaps seen most vividly in Youngstown and My City In Ruins, the protest roots of each genre feeling especially fitting here tonight.
There’s also the sheer force-of-nature playing from the 18-piece E Street Band with the horn, guitar, percussion and keys section playing as though their lives depend on it. Indeed, Springsteen does all he can to convince us tonight that lives do very much depend on their message. Before My City In Ruins, he says there’s “some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now,” as we realise he’s far from finished with President Trump yet.
He deems him an “unfit president” in charge of a “rogue government” who is taking “sadistic pleasure” in the “pain they inflict on loyal American workers” – those blue-collar workers who have been the subject of Springsteen’s songs for so long. He doesn’t stop there. “They’re rolling back historical civil rights legislation…they’re abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators…they’re removing residents off American streets and without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centres and prisons. This is all happening now,” he continues, repeating the latter phrase over and over as the venue silences at the solemnity of his message.
There are few moments of levity at the start, but moments of joy do arrive in a three-hour set that is careful to offer a message of hope alongside The Boss's urgent call for change. “At the end of the day, all we’ve got is each other,” he says, advocating that people very much have the power before steaming into a hit parade. Hungry Heart is a joyous moment of abandon, with Springsteen bounding up and down the stage like a man half the age of his 75 years. The crowd sing along to his every word while a joyous sax solo from Jake Clemons brings a much-needed moment of catharsis. Dancing In the Dark is pure, unbridled escapism, with some frenetic guitar solos from Nils Lofgren, as is Born To Run, The Rising and Because The Night. In this context, meanwhile, Born In The USA leaves no room for misinterpretation.
One of the biggest joys of the night comes during Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out when Springsteen chucks off his pin-striped, grey waistcoat to reveal more sweat on his sharp white shirt than any deodorant could realistically cope with and he wanders into the crowd, sipping a pint with a fan one moment, hugging another the next. Then there’s the expected side-by-side playing with Stevie Van Zandt too, and the frequent synchronised guitar showmanship with Longfren, all of which repeatedly delights the crowd.
It’s the politics though, that ultimately stay with you tonight. He closes with a powerful and pointed version of Bob Dylan’s Chimes of Freedom – its first official outing on tour since 1988 – and its lyrics hark back to a message Springsteen delivered earlier in the evening.
“We will survive this moment,” he tells them. “I have hope.” And now, thanks to Bruce, so do thousands of others. Many may be wondering why he chose Manchester to launch such a scathing attack on US president and not back home, but it was the universality of Springsteen’s message that hit hardest tonight: what is happening in America could just as easily happen to us.
“The last check, the last check on power after the checks and balances of government have failed are the people, you and me,” Springsteen says. “It’s in the union of people around a common set of values now that’s all that stands between a democracy and authoritarianism. At the end of the day, all we've got is each other.”
Quoting American writer, James Baldwin, he emphasises – like so many of his songs here tonight – that we must build on what humanity we do have if we have any hope for change.
“In this world there isn't as much humanity as one would like, but there's enough,” he smiles, taking a moment to look out to the arena crowd. It’s a message – and concert – for the ages.
Setlist:
Land of Hope And Dreams
Death To My Hometown
Lonesome Day
My Love Will Not Let You Down
Rainmaker
Darkness On The Edge Of Town
The Promised Land
Hungry Heart
My Hometown
Youngstown
Murder Incorporated
Long Walk Home
House Of A Thousand Guitars
My City Of Ruins
Letter to You
Because The Night
Human Touch
Wrecking Ball
The Rising
Badlands
Thunder Road
Born In The U.S.A.
Born To Run
Bobby Jean
Dancing In The Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Chimes Of Freedom
Meet The New Boss...
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Live photography: Shirlaine Forrest/Getty