Springsteen and the E Street Band's first stop at New York's Madison Square Garden is a furious reminder of the power of his catalog — and his rhetoric, too

At Madison Square Garden Monday night, Bruce Springsteen ceded a show-defining lyric to guest vocalist Tom Morello during their cover of “Clampdown.” “Let fury have the hour,” Morello shouted, as the E Street Band channeled the Clash way more credibly than anyone could’ve imagined when London Calling and The River were both on the charts. “Anger can be power.” 

As he does at every show on his Land of Hope and Dreams Tour, Springsteen joined in with a harmony on the next line: “Do you know that you can use it?”

When Springsteen reunited the E Street Band in 1999 for their first tour in over a decade, Morello was busy playing Woodstock ’99 and the first Coachella with Rage Against the Machine, and had yet to sing a note in public. Back then, Springsteen had yet to resume recording with the band, which left him especially determined to avoid nostalgia. So he steered clear of some of his most beloved songs, added outtakes from his then-new Tracks box set to the shows, and made a metal-adjacent rearrangement of his 1995 song “Youngstown” a centerpiece.  He also wrote a new song, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” that offered a utopian vision of possibilities for his band and his nation.

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Unlike most of Springsteen’s tours since The Rising, this outing has only a single new song, the instant-protest anthem “Streets of Minneapolis,” which immortalizes Renée Good and Alex Pretti, as well as the “federal thugs” who shot them dead — and which has been prompting Boomer-heavy crowds to shout “ICE out now” at arenas across the nation. Even without a new album, this tour is far more in-the-moment than any other classic-rock show you could name (excluding the always in-the-now Bob Dylan). The memory of the willful misunderstanding of “Born in the U.S.A.,” most notably by Ronald Reagan himself, is ever-fresh for Springsteen, so he’s crafted a setlist and accompanying speeches that are relentlessly clear in their indictment of Donald Trump and his administration.

If his catalog is ready-made for this purpose, it’s only because of how long Springsteen has been grappling with issues that too many politicians and artists have ignored. “Death to My Hometown,” “Youngstown,” “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” and even “Murder Incorporated” (with a surprise guitar-solo barrage from Steve Van Zandt at MSG) offer a portrait of the pre-Trump forces that brought us here. Their lyrics offer a vision of a de-industrialized, hollowed-out, safety-net-devoid nation that would inevitably be vulnerable to populist demagoguery — in fact, the real-life inspiration for the unemployed mill worker who narrates”Youngstown” told the New York Times he was a Trump voter.

“American Skin (41 Shots)” meanwhile, written years before Black Lives Matter, tackles racism and its entanglement with police violence and overreach.  It’s also an occasion for some of the most lyrical, emotional, and stunt-free soloing of Morello’s career, beginning with a trilling exchange of licks with saxophonist Jake Clemons, who seems more confident than ever in his role. (As was the case in the Seventies moment when David Sancious and Ernest “Boom Carter” were in the band, the current E Street Band is truly multiracial, with nearly as many Black performers onstage as white ones.)

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The tour’s speeches, delivered almost identically each night, should not be overlooked in a moment when the Democratic party seems leaderless, its highest-ranking officials seemingly overwhelmed by the ever-growing list of Trumpian outrages. Springsteen’s message is so simple and clear that it’s shocking that actual politicians seem unable to adopt it. He refuses to let the horrors inflicted upon Minnesota be forgotten. He reminds us of DOGE‘s pointless evisceration of USAID, and the countless deaths overseas in its wake: “It’s not on the front pages anymore,” he said at the Garden, and at every stage so far, “but it’s happening now. People are dying.” He’s had to add to the list of horrors as the tour goes on, now mentioning the Supreme Court’s attack on the Voting Rights Act, and the sea-shell-based persecution of James Comey. Overall, he revives an idea that came up so often in Trump’s first term that it somehow became a liberal-bashing joke: This is not normal. 

“We are now, to many, America the reckless, unpredictable, predatory, rogue nation,” Springsteen said. “Honesty, honor, humility, truth, compassion, humanity, thoughtfulness, morality, true strength and decency — don’t let anybody tell you that these things don’t matter anymore — they do…. So join us and let’s fight for the America that we love.” 

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Springsteen is so fired up this time that the elegiac feel of his last tour has slipped away, along with its reminders of mortality. Aside from the always-delightful death-defiance of “Wrecking Ball,” he allowed only one moment along those lines at MSG, reminiscing about playing his first New York City show as a teenager, at Cafe Wha. “What I’m saying is, thanks for a lifetime,” he said, prompting a long, notably emotional ovation. 

The show began with a light lingering on an empty spot behind a mic stand, which Springsteen eventually stepped into for his opening speech. In the moments before his arrival, it was hard not to think about that void, and dread the day Bruce Springsteen won’t be around to fill it.