LOHAD American Tour 2026: Opening Night Thoughts
War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
SETLIST: WAR (with Tom Morello) / BORN IN THE U.S.A. (with Tom Morello) / DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN (with Tom Morello) / NO SURRENDER / DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN / STREETS OF MINNEAPOLIS / THE PROMISED LAND / OUT IN THE STREET / HUNGRY HEART / YOUNGSTOWN / MURDER INCORPORATED / AMERICAN SKIN (41 SHOTS) (with Tom Morello) / LONG WALK HOME (with Tom Morello) / HOUSE OF A THOUSAND GUITARS / MY CITY OF RUINS / BECAUSE THE NIGHT / WRECKING BALL / THE RISING / THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD (with Tom Morello) / BADLANDS (with Tom Morello) / LAND OF HOPE AND DREAMS - PEOPLE GET READY (with Tom Morello) / BORN TO RUN / BOBBY JEAN / DANCING IN THE DARK / TENTH AVENUE FREEZE-OUT (with Tom Morello) / PURPLE RAIN (with Tom Morello) / CHIMES OF FREEDOM (with Tom Morello)
I am letting “with Tom Morello” stand for this first entry but we are going to have to stipulate moving forward that we know that Morello is there and he will (rightly) be playing on some songs and not others.
I did not go to Minneapolis for opening night for the same reason I didn’t go to First Avenue (despite having a ticket in my cart three separate times): this show was for the people who lived there. I offer that as an explanation and not as a judgement; I’m not going to tell anyone that they shouldn't be at opening night, not in 2026.
So I’m offering commentary just based on a read of the setlist and whatever clips I saw. I did not look at any setlist spoilers and will address that at the end of this essay. This essay assumes that readers have watched the official two song broadcast.
The above post was from a thread where I was thinking about what the first two songs would be, because of the live broadcast, as well as some general musings on what this setlist could look like. I will be curious to see if he maintains War/BITUSA in the leadoff spots for the rest of the tour or if this was especially for 1) opening night 2) in Minnesota 3) for a live audience.
Last night probably wouldn’t have surprised anyone as much as it did (in a good way) if we still had access to reliable, well-written show reports on a consistent basis from something like Backstreets. Getting vetted, high quality reportage makes a difference. I had one friend over for the 2025 Euro shows who kept telling me that things were different, that these shows were different, and that he was sure Bruce was not intending for those to be the final word on this particular subject. I 100% believed him, but until these tour dates were announced, who knew?
And also, until you saw it? WHO KNEW? Holy shit. I watched those two songs last night and three notes into BITUSA I was pulling up the tour itinerary to figure out where else I could get to (in addition to the four shows I am already holding tickets for).
The last time “War” was in the setlist was in March of 2003, the exact same day (March 20) that the US began the invasion into Iraq. E Street was in Australia and New Zealand at the time. When they got back to the States, that first show in Sacramento opened with a blindingly intense acoustic “Born in the USA” into CCR’s “Who’ll Stop The Rain.” (I imagine we’ll get some more of those kinds of topical covers as the tour moves on, especially with Mr. Morello hanging around.) I was in the pit at that show in Sacto and I can still see the intensity on his face and hear it in the way he played the guitar that night.
“War” last night was catharsis and it was multifaceted and applicable to so many contexts: the current invasion, the attacks on Americans in the streets or just going about their lives, about Gaza, about any hostile actions directed from one country towards another country. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. In all of my considerations of this particular song, I had not stopped to think about how incredible it would be to have Tom Morello playing it, not that Nils Lofgren ever disappointed on that song or any other. But they are two very different guitar players, each with their own individual brand and style of incandescence. Morello is a Molotov cocktail, and that’s the firepower that was required on “War” last night.
I’ve written about the experience listening to “Born in the USA” live so many times, and how liberating it was to hear it in Europe (at a time we as a country were not roundly reviled) — you can just appreciate what a great song it is, you can feel the bass thudding in the center of your chest, you can sing along without someone thinking that you’re one of those people who doesn’t pay attention to the lyrics.
This verse always hits, but its impact shifts based on context:
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go
In the first two lines - just 14 words! - Springsteen crafts a blisteringly vivid, precise snapshot of America in the early 80s. When he wrote it, he probably hoped that it would some day be different, and the fact that it’s not different, that it’s not just the same, but also worse? I can’t imagine what it must feel like to keep singing a song that was the truth when you wrote it initially and has never diminished in its veracity.
Bruce has often updated the “ten years” and sometimes that makes sense but he didn’t last night, that could be deliberate or he could just have forgotten. It could be deliberate to remind everyone how long ago this song was written and how long it’s been true, which is what I thought when I heard it last night.
And then that last line? The genius is that he deliberately invokes Motown, and all of the context around that music and what it meant to the troops fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia, but also flips the joy around to portray the desperation of a whole generation.
I don’t know who was running the live feed last night but the decision to allow the viewers at home to hear the intro to the third song was genius. Thank you. “Death to My Hometown” is another song that I’m sure Bruce wished was no longer topical but it will be topical for the rest of our lifetimes (“our” meaning Mr. S. and myself). But this particular run — which is similar to Europe 2025, but very much not identical (this is a vibe, it’s been one show, I need more data before I can unpack it) — practically sequences itself. DTMH, “No Surrender,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”
But then? ELECTRIC “STREETS OF MINNEAPOLIS.” When I was flipping around social media last night I saw a clip of this on Instagram and thought “Huh, this is awfully early in the set for an acoustic number,” but then realized Bruce had an electric guitar and watched with astonishment as he turned “Streets of Minneapolis” into an instant classic. Like it’s the most Springsteenian possible arrangement, it reminds me of “Better Days,” that slow build before all of E Street comes in, and then that arena-sized explosion that makes your heart grow two more sizes.
BUT THEN.
It is clear that Mr. Springsteen intends to have 15-20k people yelling “ICE. OUT. NOW.” in major sporting arenas across America from now until the end of May. Including the audience that will be in attendance in that baseball park in Washington, DC. And anyone who’s mad about it (please find Chris Christie at the East Coast shows) is going to have to deal with the cognitive dissonance of not understanding that you have never been on the same side as Bruce Springsteen.
I received multiple text messages complaining that this set did not require both “Out in the Street” and “Hungry Heart” and this was from people who absolutely understand the purpose of those songs in the set. But I will die on the hill of saying that these songs — especially when you look at the rest of the set, even the encore is not endless warhorses strung together just because you can — are there to serve the purpose of the people needing both bread and roses, and “Out in the Street” is there because that’s when Bruce likes to go behind the stage and commune with the people, and also BECAUSE OF THE TITLE. What are Americans doing right now? They’re going OUT IN THE STREET. Especially in Minnesota this song deserved to be in the setlist.
“Youngstown,” “Murder Inc.,” “Long Walk Home,” “House of A Thousand Guitars” — this is very similar to what he did last summer except that we have “American Skin” after “Murder Inc.” and before “Long Walk Home” and that one song transforms that run. It changes it from a large sweeping commentary into something very specific and very American. (It also reminds people that Bruce Springsteen has written protest songs before “Streets of Minneapolis,” and before you say “no one needs to be told that” I will tell you that they do. It was why I ended up writing this essay instead of just correcting randos on Bluesky.)
I think he needs to put “Because the Night” after “Night of 1k Guitars” because I think “My City of Ruins” should come next to “Wrecking Ball” and it would make for an absolute locomotive at the end of the set, “The Rising” into “Tom Joad” into “Badlands” into LOHAD. This is a story, it is a saga, it is the troubadour going city to city to sing the tales of the past, it is bringing warnings, it is reminding us of how we got here and how there is still hope and still a way forward.
I am thrilled that the encore is pared down to the essential hits — everyone needs to see “Born to Run” and casual fans want to see “Dancing In The Dark” and they should get to see both of those. I don’t know how “Tenth Avenue” was presented right now but no matter how it is performed it is and always will be the story about the band which is why it should never leave the setlist.
I was there the first time the E Street Band played “Purple Rain” and I am so thrilled for the good people of Minneapolis-St. Paul that they got to hear this and I am equally thrilled that E Street had the opportunity to play a Prince song in his hometown, AND that Morello got the guitar solo, especially last night, not just because of his considerable talents on the guitar, but the optics of a multi-racial man getting to play that solo at home is not accidental. Adding “Chimes of Freedom,” a thing I thought I’d never get to see, to that bundle of both speaking up and paying tribute? Utterly fantastic.
I’d like to see Bruce shake up the setlist box just a little more but none of this is auto-pilot and even if he doesn’t change a thing? This is great. We need this right now. We need the anger and the catharsis and the small shards of hope glittering in the dust.
As he told the great Jon Bream in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, “My job is very simple: I do what I want to do, I say what I want to say, and then people get to say what they want to say about it.… I don’t worry about if you’re going to lose this part of your audience,” he said. “I’ve always had a feeling about the position we play culturally, and I’m still deeply committed to that idea of the band. The blowback is just part of it. I’m ready for all that.”
Let's go. See you in Chicago.
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postscript: I didn’t look at setlist spoilers because I have no way of knowing who is posting whatever they’re posting and without Backstreets there’s no vetting of anyone’s veracity. (I don't even know who sent setlists to Brucebase so I take them with a grain of salt.) People lie about this stuff all the time because they like the attention. There’s also the demonstrated problem of people who do not have the knowledge to know the difference between a live band and the crew playing old recordings over the PA. I do not have the patience to wade through this nor do I have the emotional capacity to get worked up about fake setlist postings. This is Journalism 101; this is also plain old Skepticism 101, and as a country we could do with a lot more of the latter.
