Photo Credit: Ari Cummings

Last night, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band returned to Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Barclays Center on their politically charged Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour. It was the fourth of Springsteen’s five New York Metro Area appearances and his first stop in the Brooklyn arena since 2023. Though known to change his setlists from night to night, Springsteen has stuck to a set songlist throughout the run, using his experience staging a show on Broadway a few years ago to create a narrative arc that mixes material from throughout his catalog into a pointed commentary on the state of American politics and a critique of the Trump administration. (Promotional material for the run offered a direct attack, declaring “no kings.”) 

As on all the dates of the outing, the E Street Band opened their show with their cover of The Temptations’ “War,” which they had not played since 2003, before the run. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who has subbed with the E Street Band in the past, was also a featured guest throughout the night, coming and going where the group saw fit and offering some spirited solos. In a memorable moment, he shared lead vocals with Springsteen on “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” a song he regularly covered with Rage and his own outfits.

While Springsteen mostly let the music speak for itself, he did address the dire state of affairs, including the Trump administration’s attacks on the Voter Registration Act, the administration’s willingness to hand out favors to their friends and business associates, and the murder of Alex Pretti during ICE’s occupation of Minneapolis. The new original “Streets of Minnanpolis” and the 2001 tune “41 Shots,” which addressed NYPD officers’ shooting of Amadou Diallo, were natural centerpieces to the show, but even hits like “Bandlands,” which contains lyrics like “Poor man wanna be rich/ Rich man wanna be king/ And a king ain’t satisfied ’til he rules everything,” felt intentional. The tour’s titular song, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” which has been in rotation since 1999, also included a welcome bit of “People Get Ready.”

Below, we offer some visual highlights from the night.