Photo Gallery: Bruce Springsteen at United Center • Chicago
Bruce Springsteen
United Center
April 29, 2026
Chicago, IL
Recap and gallery by Curt Baran
Usually, when Bruce Springsteen lands in town, it’s an immediate cause for celebration. Such was not the case this time. He and his famed E Street Band have hit the road this time because the shredded fabric of democracy in this country is hanging on by some severely tenuous threads.
The “Land of Hope and Dreams Tour” is no celebratory cause. It’s a musical call to arms. Make no mistake, it has been, was, and will continue to be, over the course of twenty-some U.S. dates, an evening of protest songs. If you’re looking for the hits, sure, you’ll get a few of course (“Born To Run,” “Dancing In The Dark,” “Badlands”), but the tone this time around is deadly serious. The country is in a terrifying place, as Springsteen proclaimed during an epic, near-three-hour screed through the most political aspects of his rich catalogue, but he confidently declared, “the E Street Band was built for hard times like these.”
As he stepped into a single spotlight at center stage, he orated that the night would be a “prayer for our men and women in the armed forces” who have needlessly been placed in harm’s way because of decisions made by a reckless White House and a buffoon of a president, who cherishes profit over peace and autocracy over democracy, before launching into a thunderous cover of The Temptations’ “War.” And thus would be the tone for a 27-song set list that would highlight not only his own history of protest songs (the often misconstrued “Born in the USA,” “Murder Incorporated,” the recently penned “Streets of Minneapolis,” “American Skin (41 Shots),” “ Long Walk Home,” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad”) but those belonging to others as well (The Clash’s “Clampdown” and Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom”).
It was the Church of Rock and Roll, a somber reminder that the strive for good to triumph over evil will always remain a perpetual struggle. But the evening provided a sense of community, the safety and comfort that we’re all pushing through it collectively. It was also a reminder that if you think you’re going through it alone, at least, on this particular night, there were 24,000 others who you could lean on.
Category: Featured
