Springsteen & the E Street Band: Milan, July 3, 2025

Over the years, an expectation has occasionally been built in the Bruce fan community that a tour finale will be a spectacle. There is certainly precedent for that: In 2000, the Reunion Tour ended with a blowout at Madison Square Garden, including rarities and even a world debut. In 2009, the Working on a Dream tour ended in Buffalo with a once-ever performance of the entire Greetings from Asbury Park album, and also other rarely and never-played songs. So for this final Milano show in the extreme heat, this final rescheduled show from 2024 and the last go-round for this 20-day tour's E Street Band, it could hardly be a surprise that fans arriving at San Siro thought maybe there'd be a bit of that once-in-a-lifetime experience at a building that has produced so many prior memories.

This was not that show.

If you saw Monday's show, you pretty much saw this one. This isn't a bad thing: Bruce was in great spirits, playing with audience members again and egging on the crowd to many singalongs: In this show, you don't have to wonder whether Bruce sings "sways" or "waves"; Bruce no longer sings the line at all.

At the opening of the show, the San Siro audience held up cellophane sheets that spelled out, "See Me In Your Dreams." Th effect was fairly awesome, though the specific slogan no longer fits the tour.

The early part of the show had a distinct Darkness feel, as Bruce inserts both Darkness on the Edge of Town and Prove It All Night in to the setlist. After the first 9 songs, though, the setlist was a duplicate of Monday's, until the finale. The political aspects remained present, though it seemed to me a bit less prominent: Bruce was here to have a good time, and to soak up the love from the Milano crowd. Bruce got to the end of "Chimes of Freedom" at 10:45, making it clear he had saved one final number for the crowd - John Fogerty's "Rockin' All Over the World," which Bruce previously used as the finale of that 2009 Buffalo show. The San Siro crowd sang along to that, too.

As for me, major bucket list retired. I've been to a show -- two shows -- in Europe, in the heart of Bruce's motherland, with great company in both small and large scale. That's something that will stay with me forever.

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