Fan reports are leaking from die-cards waiting outside of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band‘s New Jersey rehearsals. The Twitter page Bruce Springsteen’s Tour News has been keeping vigil outside of rehearsals and listing all that’s been going down inside. The band is currently rehearsing for their 2023 comeback tour in Red Bank at The Vogel, with Monday’s (January 16th) rehearsals only featuring “The Boss,” keyboardists Roy Bittan and Charlie Giordano — along with the tour’s backing vocalists.
In addition to the slew of band standards performed by the E Streeter’s over the past few days, several songs from Springsteen’s recent soul covers set, Only The Strong Survive, have been tackled, including “Nightshift,” “Don’t Play That Song,” and “Do I Love You (Indeed I Do).”
The band was also heard rehearsing live versions of songs from Springsteen’s 2020 Letter To You album – including the album’s title track, “House Of A Thousand Guitars,” “Ghosts,” and “If I Was Priest.”
Among the guests who’ve popped into rehearsals have been Springsteen’s younger sister, photographer Pam, his son — New Jersey firefighter — Sam Springsteen and his wife, photographer Danny Clinch, and close friend John Salerno.
Over the years, we’ve been lucky enough to talk to Springsteen about his work and how the E Street Band has figured into his music. He explained to us that following a decade long hiatus, the band reconvening in 1999 meant a tremendous amount to him and each and every member of the band: [“It was a great time for all of us. We’re probably one of the few bands where everybody’s alive. Y’know, and everybody’s healthy, and all the relationships are intact. And I think that we’ve gotten to a place where everybody realizes, ‘Wow, this is a very singular thing.’ Y’know, it’s a unique thing; this group of people playing together in this fashion. And that we created something together that was a big, big part of our own lives, y’know? And a big part of our audience’s life and we wanted to live up to that thing. And we wanted to continue to serve in the fashion that we served before with our audience, y’know? And those were really — and those were the critical issues when we got together, y’know, to come out on the road. And I think they were things that you really weren’t going top know the answers to till you got out and played.”] SOUNDCUE (:53 OC: . . . out and played)