MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - MARCH 31: Tom Morello and Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band perform during Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour at Target Center on March 31, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

My first Bruce Springsteen show was in 1984 at the L.A. Sports Arena with my dad. Forty-two years later both are now gone. Watching the second of Springsteen and the E Street Band’s two sold-out shows at the Forum, I was struck a lot by the thoughts of aging and the passage of time. This was my sixty-first Springsteen show – many of which I have seen with friends or family members no longer here – and my first in my new unique setting in life.

In June of 2024 I suffered a stroke, which left my mobility permanently impaired. So, this, my sixty-first Springsteen show, was my first one watching from a wheelchair, definitely a slightly surreal experience. I didn’t quite know what to expect at the thought of not being able to jump on the floor with everyone else during “Born to Run.” Different? Absolutely, but after 60 Springsteen shows before this and over 5000 shows in a more than a 30-year career as a top-level music journalist, I had an epiphany.

The power of music is that more than anything else in this universe, music has the ability to fight time and make one feel young again. Think about how often a favorite song from your childhood transports you back to simpler and more carefree days. Beatles, Prince, Motown, Backstreet Boys, the current fascination with the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris,” Fleetwood Mac, Zeppelin, Sinatra, Chuck Berry, it doesn’t matter the song or artist, if you associate it with your memories, it becomes a time machine.

And Springsteen understands that as well as anyone who has ever held a guitar. Of course, watching from a wheelchair for the first time my perspective was going to differ from others. To most everyone else, this is a politically driven tour, right from the intro to “War.” And yes, the politics was spoken of often, with Springsteen using his pulpit from the stage to label the president “A corrupt clown” who is “scared of the truth.” He also had the crowd chant “ICE out” during the powerful “Streets of Minneapolis.” It was there in the song choices too, like “American Skin (41 Shots),” the guitar-driven vitriol of the back-to-back “Youngstown” and “Murder Incorporated,” as well as the incendiary “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and the cover of The Clash’s “Clampdown,” all propelled by furious guitar work by longtime Springsteen friend and fan Tom Morello. Cannot forget the as always brilliant guitar work of Nils Lofgren on “Because The Night.”

But what so many seem to be missing on this tour is Springsteen understands that anger needs to be infused with hope. Anger without hope becomes destruction and chaos. Anger with hope can change the world. And as he reminded the crowd during his stirring intro to “My City of Ruins,” only the American people can take back and save America from the insanity happening today.

The world for many feels increasingly chaotic, but the power of a Springsteen and the E Street Band show has remained, for the 40-plus years, I have been going, through all the changes, all the loss, the inevitable passage of time, and yes, even all the insanity, is the ability to inspire hope by taking us all back to when all was not lost. Springsteen, who once released an album called Magic, magically, through the power of music, transports all of us there willing to go for the ride, back to being 15 and seeing your first show when there was belief that you, and music, could change the world.

Yes, there was a lot of justifiable anger in this show. But for all of that fury, there was a “Dancing in the Dark,” a “Promised Land,” the dramatic beauty of “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” the guarded optimism of “Long Walk Home,” introduced as a prayer for our country, the sheer joy and glee of he and Steve Van Zandt trading vocals on “Two Hearts,” the majesty of “Born to Run,” my hands-down choice for greatest live anthem of all time (and I have seen them all), the unbridled nostalgia of “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out,” when the “Big Man” (Clarence Clemons) joined the band, and the musically gentle, yet forceful reminder of what is at stake with the closing Bob Dylan cover “Chimes of Freedom.”

Sure, it was politically motivated to remind us all not to give up, to keep fighting. And Springsteen understands to do that we all have to believe. What better way to do that than by reminding every single one of us, whatever way life has kicked our butts, that 15-year-old who believed music could and would change the world, is still in there whether you can physically jump along or not?