MUSIC legend Bruce Springsteen will make his Limerick debut on Tuesday 16 at Thomond Park. The gig is set to be the music event of the year here in the city, tickets for the show were snapped up in minutes with East Stand tickets now on sale online for as much as €1,200. The concert has also brought a welcome midweek boost for hotels and guesthouses in the city.
The tour supports his 17th studio album, Wrecking Ball released in March 2012. The album was Rolling Stone’s best album of 2012 and ‘Wrecking Ball’ and its lead single, ‘We Take Care of Our Own’ received three Grammy nominations.
The album, described as his angriest yet, is an “indictment of Wall Street greed and corruption and a look into the devastation it has wrought,” according to Springsteen in a 2009 interview.
The Wrecking Ball Tour began in March 2012 and comes to Limerick exactly one year since his last Irish shows in Dublin’s RDS. This time Springsteen is touring with a 17-member band, making it the largest lineup ever for an E Street Band tour.
The tour is the first for the E Street Band without founding member Clarence Clemons, who died in June 2011. Eddie Manion and Clarence Clemons’s nephew, Jake Clemons now share saxophone duties.
The tour runs to 130 shows (over 450 hours on stage) finishing in Rio De Janeiro in September 2013. Most shows on the Wrecking Ball Tour run for three to three and a half hours, while his show in Helsinki ran for four hours and six minutes. ‘Wrecking Ball’ is currently the 21st highest grossing concert tour ever earning $194,770,934 so far and has already been attended by over 2 million fans.
Predicting what the setlist might be for Thomond Park is difficult as the set changes nightly but Springsteen in recent concerts has performed one album in its entirety, classic albums such as ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’, ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ have all been played in full.
Recording of the follow up album to Wrecking Ball is already under way. Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello took the place of Steven Van Zandt on guitar on the Australian leg of the tour. He and the rest of the E Street Band recorded with Springsteen in a studio in Sydney during the tour. Springsteen told Rolling Stone Magazine, “We’ve never had a recording session during a tour in our lives. Recording with Tommy was exciting and the band continues to be a source of inspiration for me.”
For those who can’t get enough of “The Boss”, ‘Springsteen & I’ is about to be released. It is a new fan-made documentary celebrating 40 years of the music of Bruce Springsteen. Fans of the boss tell stories of how Springsteen’s music became the soundtrack to their lives. Expect to see rare performances, previously unseen footage and classic songs. The film gets a world premier on July 20.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play Thomond Park, Limerick this Tuesday July 16. Gates open at 5pm. The show starts at 7pm with no support bands.
