Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Pittsburgh, May 19, 2026

Setlist: WAR / BORN IN THE U.S.A. / DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN / CLAMPDOWN / NO SURRENDER / DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN / STREETS OF MINNEAPOLIS / THE PROMISED LAND / TWO HEARTS / HUNGRY HEART / YOUNGSTOWN / MURDER INCORPORATED / AMERICAN SKIN (41 SHOTS) / LONG WALK HOME / HOUSE OF A THOUSAND GUITARS / MY CITY OF RUINS / BECAUSE THE NIGHT / WRECKING BALL / THE RISING / THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD / BADLANDS / LAND OF HOPE AND DREAMS - PEOPLE GET READY / AMERICAN LAND / BORN TO RUN / DANCING IN THE DARK / TENTH AVENUE FREEZE-OUT / CHIMES OF FREEDOM

This show was fucking insane.

I mean, I can try to think of loftier and more sophisticated ways of describing the E Street Band in Pittsburgh tonight, but every single moment of this show was enormous and overwhelming.

This setlist should not be catching me by surprise but it still did. If I hadn’t been sitting behind the stage in Pittsburgh (section 118! Represent! I have been in this section the last three times I have seen Springsteen here) I swear to you I would have forgotten that “Clampdown” comes after “Death To My Hometown,” because I was still trying to settle down after the opening numbers. But CLAMPDOWN popped up on the prompters and I thought, “OH, RIGHT.” 

It’s that one-two punch of “War”/BITUSA that starts the chain reaction. I have seen this before, I have watched videos of it from many other shows, and yet the power and the drama and the energy once again bowled me over. I have seen this band before! Many times! And yet tonight there were multiple times where I completely lost track of time or the setlist, standing there, absolutely overwhelmed and enveloped and in disbelief that this band can still be so good. 

Why does “Clampdown” in the set matter so much? It matters because it is a visible manifestation of the kinship between Bruce Springsteen and Joe Strummer. It matters because Tom Morello brought it to the table. It matters because it was one of the Clash’s greatest and most important songs. It matters because I get to sing the words to a Clash song out loud, in public, with a live band. We are given the opportunity to communally experience that particular catharsis which isn’t possible any more because the Clash cannot exist any more. It will remind some people, it will intrigue some people, and the rest will shrug and go on with their day.

Each band, each musician, gets to determine their lineage, who they are influenced by, who they stand next to, who they pay tribute to, who they choose to remember, what they want to continue to keep alive. Joe Strummer would have a lot of things to say about the world right now. We’re lucky we have everything he gave us, and we’re lucky that Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello have decided to keep this particular work — which hasn’t stopped being true since even before it was written — alive and vital. And it matters to me and the other punk rock kids who thought they all fit together back in the day and didn’t understand why liking the Ramones and Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen was weird. The classic rock kids were outraged, the punk kids sneered disapprovingly. WHO WON?

From a musical perspective, I think Chicago was a better show, it was more solid end-to-end. But the energy here in Pittsburgh tonight was off the fucking charts. I think Max might have been a little under the weather because there were a handful of times where the center was falling apart a little and yet it still held together beautifully. Most people would not even notice. But that is what a great band can do, the other members can pick up the slack until whoever is behind can reorient themselves. It was absolutely fascinating to watch, especially from my perspective behind the stage. It is also a charming metaphor for the theme of this show, community.

[Also fascinating to watch was the band’s entrance backstage. Bruce walks out first and stands at the entrance under the stage and greets each member as they walk up the stairs. It was particularly hilarious to be able to observe this tradition here in Pittsburgh, which is exactly where this tradition began, after two members of the band [fine, it was Roy and Nils] were still playing ping-pong while the rest were playing the intro to “Born in the USA.” Bruce said it would never happen again; this is exactly how he ensures it never happens again. (I'll put the video on Instagram later.)

“Darkness on the Edge of Town” has been transformed on this tour. It has a different depth and emotional quality, like Bruce has let the narrator age, and is speaking from a position of sadness and gratitude and anger, but an older, harder rage. And within Bruce’s performance of the song, he is adjusting it, shifting up and down as he needs. He modulated down on the first two choruses, but on the last chorus? He let loose and that last “townnnnnnnnn” soared to the rafters. His emotional reaction met the crowd’s response. He knows what he did, my notes say, based on body language and facial expression and a half a century of watching the man.

Well now some folks are born into a good life
And other folks get it anyway anyhow

I wonder what it’s like to look at things you wrote almost 50 years ago and feel like a fortune teller.

When I saw “Streets of Minnesota” in Chicago, I was eagerly waiting for my chance to yell “ICE OUT NOW.” They’re turning the house lights on now when this happens and it is definitely the right decision — in Chicago I thought the darkness might make people more brave, but it is definitely more communal and unifying to have the lights on. Tonight I was personally waiting for my chance to yell It's our blood and bones and these whistles and phones/ against Miller and Noem's FUCKING LIES. What a goddamn line that is. It was even more cathartic than yelling ICE OUT NOW. It was as cathartic as getting to sing "Clampdown" with my whole chest along with thousands of other people.

Roy Bittan’s keyboard work on this number is understated, tasteful and worth keeping an eye (or an ear) out for.

When you see “Youngstown” in Pittsburgh, the audience cheers for the Monongahela Valley and there's this moment where you pause, take a breath, and for a second the reality of both the song and the world around you come into pinpoint sharp focus. This isn’t a “oh hey this is in my state” cheer; anyone who is acknowledging this level of local geography probably lived through it. It is special and it is important.

Nils Lofgren’s solo tonight on “Youngstown” was incredible: a deliberate, slow build, dynamic, full of shadows but also full of triumph, it mirrored the emotions and the lyrics with a beautiful balance. He played facing Max, leaning in, before spinning once, spinning twice. He can’t do what he used to do but most of us can’t play an insane guitar solo while hopping on one foot and spinning like a dervish. The power and the strength is in the notes, and while of course these were Nils Lofgren works I could hear and feel the kinship from all those years he played with Neil. Is it insulting to Nils to say “hey that solo felt very Neil?” This descriptor is meant as the highest of high compliments. I think it was the economy of the work that caused that impression; Neil Young can say a lot with very few notes and Nils is painting pictures with the deeper skill that comes with time.

“Murder Inc.” was an absolute, total, complete barnburner. It moved. It shimmied. It drove straight through the joint, it took no prisoners. I danced as hard as I possibly could dance. I’d say it was like Reunion-era hot, except that this is a better band and this is a better, heavier version. It is carrying weight.

And then we got to the solo, and it did not seem real. Like Steve just tossed it this off with utter precision, filling it with perfect weight and energy and color, it was like he didn’t even break a sweat. It was that typical SVZ move where he pulls out all his energies at once and puts it to use, and you stand there with your jaw hitting the floor. 

When they began “American Skin,” Bruce turned his back on the audience, standing with his legs spread and his arms out, shoulder level. It’s stagecraft but it is also how he gathers himself after “Murder Inc.” and how he finds his way into the next song, which is a very different vibe. This is how he paces himself through the show, he finds these small moments to switch gears. 

Jake was standing with his hands up and slowly, gradually, other people in the audience decided to join him. It wasn’t everybody but it was a lot of people seeing him — it is dark over there, it’s not like there’s a spotlight on him, and there is a lot going on on that stage every single moment — and just watching folks in the crowd make their own observation and then a decision. There’s a gorgeous horn motif along the choruses that I don’t remember hearing before and Charlie adds some beautiful color as well. 

Morello’s solo tonight was exceptional. It wasn’t about desperation, it felt like it was full of hope and pain but also coming from someone who has lived a life. It was a beautiful, intuitive accompaniment to the song.

(“Morello is an elf,” I wrote in my notes because his appearance for “American Skin” was the first time I saw him enter the stage (or leave). Tonight he was wearing a t-shirt with #21, for Pittsburgh’s own Roberto Clemente and he remains the person on that stage that is having the most fun. Like there is a thought bubble over his head at all times that says “Holy shit! I’m in the E Street Band.”)

Another lovely horn melody I had not previously noticed was “Long Walk Home.” There’s a bit at the end where Jake taps Tom on the shoulder as Jake heads back to the horn platform and it reminded me of the various little routines Nils and Clarence had. It’s good to see this kind of communal business happening stage right again. 

By the time we got to “House of A Thousand Guitars” I was grateful for the chance to sit down, even though I know that emotionally it's still going to be another emotional moment. I’m so glad he kept this song around. It is better in this form, you get to see its bones and that is where a song truly lives or dies. Like you can make anything loud and catchy but can it hold up night after night? (Also in this form you can kind of ignore the fact that he somehow forgot that he already used ‘from the churches to the jails’ because it's just delivered as a lyric and not a point of special emphasis.) A friend who took her pre-teen to one of the LA shows related that that was the song she liked the most and I think that means something in the same way the youth are rejecting AI. There was no visible exodus, despite it being the first quiet moment, which somehow people think is the time to go out (okay, I would have gone out during “American Land” but that’s me.)

There are significant updates to the “My City of Ruins” prelude: he has added the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act and he did not have to encourage Pittsburgh to boo that. I appreciated that in the line about the dismantling of USAID, he said, "This is no longer on the front page." It also must be agonizing, and then challenging, to be reading the news of the day and thinking about what you need to put into your remarks and then what comes out.

It’s lovely to watch the horn section hype one another up after someone takes a solo. 

“Because the Night” began a little off-kilter, but it found its groove and the solo was fantastic, this lovely, slow build. I’m making my peace with “Wrecking Ball” by noting how incredibly relevant it is to this time and this set, especially "all of our victories and glories/have turned into parking lots" – both literally and figuratively.

Pittsburgh welcomed Mr. Tom Morello with the loudest roar I have heard from a Bruce Springsteen audience in tribute to his otherwordly work on the solo for “Ghost of Tom Joad.” The solo was intergalactic, in that it absolutely transported us somewhere else that was not here. It was breathtaking, full of color and emotion, pain and tears, bone cleansing rage.

You know what also hit hard tonight? “Badlands.” Before the show I was chatting to one of my seatmates about how at the St. Louis show in 2008 I was in the queue with this nice couple who had their signs and when they shared, her sign was for “Badlands” and nobody wanted to be the one to tell her. This particular warhorse can sometimes feel obligatory, maybe occasionally rushed through, but there are other times where it has the right place in the set and it is given the space and room and gravitas it both requires and deserves and you get to feel what “Badlands” actually is. 

I have always adored “Land of Hope and Dreams” and have always felt that it was one of the most under-rated songs — because it came post-Reunion, because it took a long time to get it on record, because there were people in the fanbase who really did not appreciate, like, or want Bruce Springsteen’s music to be anywhere near gospel. LOHAD in its best form always needs the horns, it could work without the E Street Choir but man, this thing was written to stretch into the stratosphere, it requires room and space and Bruce should fill it with as many things as his heart desires. But that moment where the horns hit the second refrain is like that moment when the Grinch’s heart grows so big it breaks the frame.

When we got to “Born to Run” it felt like the best “Born to Run” I have ever seen, and I have seen “Born to Run” many, many times. It felt sharp, fresh and new and it was lovely to stand in the middle of this. I know some long-time fans hate it or make fun of it (hell, the horns make fun of it) but I just do not know how. I stood near a guy at a show in Tacoma on the Rising tour who said, “I think ‘Born to Run’ is Bruce’s gift to rock and roll and that’s how I look at it every time he plays it.” I decided I’d try that approach and it transformed my relationship to the song. It stopped being the song I heard on the radio a million times and became this sacred moment. And you can always find at least one person in the crowd who has never heard this song live before and are completely losing their minds that they get to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play “Born to Run” live. 

But also during “Born to Run” I had the thought that while I completely understand why this show has the same setlist every night — Morello and his ‘sometimes you gotta kick ‘em in the teeth’ — it’s too bad because the band is operating at an incredibly high level even for the E Street Band and it would be great to hear them play more than these 27 songs. That is what I am sad about, that we got the E Street Band on the road because we needed them (and vice versa) but they have a specific job to do at the moment. 

Once Bruce was done with introductions and announcements and walking around the floor for “Tenth Avenue,” he sat down on the step in front and my brain was in some kind of E Street Encore mode and then the prompter said CHIMES and I said “OH! RIGHT!” I spent some time last week listening to all the existing live records of “Chimes of Freedom” that I had / could find because I wanted to confirm that Bruce always skips my favorite two verses. I have a lot to say about “Chimes” so let’s save that for Cleveland. Or it may end up being its own essay. I had given up on ever seeing Bruce do this, but I also had resigned myself a long time ago to the fact that I was going to have to get on a plane and go to California if I ever wanted to see Tom Morello play with E Street on an electric version of Joad. ahahahahahahaheee.

The other key player in this show tonight was the Pittsburgh audience. It always feels old-school here – I have seen Springsteen here half a dozen times by now – and the audience is always deeply engaged. I know, the show didn't sell out and you could still pick up a GA floor for face right up until the show started, but face was $509 (and this is a discussion for another essay). The Detroit contingent was complaining that he could have sold out the show at home and he probably could have, but there's a reason he always comes to Pittsburgh. (Also, LCA is a terrible place to see a concert.)

Cleveland on Friday! Let's hear it for the Heartland.

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Tonight’s beneficiaries were Casa San Jose and Rapid Response. Maybe it was just the people sitting near me, but I have never heard an audience cheer so loudly for the charity partners.