Springsteen & the E Street Band: Washington, May 27, 2026

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Long Walk Home.
Washington, DC, May 27, 2026.
Photo: Matthew Orel

You know that flag flying over the courthouse

It means certain things are set in stone

Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't

--Bruce Springsteen, Long Walk Home

Bruce Springsteen has performed in front of the American flag before. Most famously, the "Born in the U.S.A" tour stadium shows opened with Bruce and the E Street Band in front of a giant flag; after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001m Bruce played benefit shows in New Jersey in front of a giant flag as well.

It's not subtle. This is my country and this is my flag.

Bruce Springsteen, Max Weinberg
Land of Hope and Dreams.
Washington, DC, May 27, 2026.
Photo: Matthew Orel

On Wednesday, Bruce took his case to the nation's capital city, in the only stadium show of the Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour.

It'd be easy enough to interpret - or, arguably, misinterpret - that flag as an assertion of unvarnished American greatness. Or even of past greatness. But that's not the intent here; it's a "warts and all" aspiration. As Springsteen said during his litany of "this is happening now" events while introducing "My City of Ruins, "Our museums are being told to whitewash American history of any unpleasant or inconvenient facts like the full history of the brutality of slavery."

Bruce had a brand new "this is happening now" event to introduce to the DC crowd at that point in the show: "There are immigrants being held in for-profit detention centers around the country, such as Delaney Hall in my own home state of New Jersey, where our own governor has been refused access to meet with detainees about the conditions there."

Bruce Springsteen, Max Weinberg, and Tom Morello.
Born in the U.S.A.
Washington, DC, May 27, 2026.
Photo: Matthew Orel

Still, when the band came around to that final verse of "Long Walk Home," with the huge stadium screen behind them (the arenas, after all, had seats behind the stage), and the backdrop became that flag flying over the band, the effect was startling. For me, it was the moment of this tour, the moment that crystallized what it was about, that ultimately we're in this together.

As ever on this tour, the performances were sizzling and Bruce seemed possessed. But not just Bruce. Max, all of the guitar players, the keyboards, and yes, Bruce did finally figure out how to use both the horns and the E Street Choir; they were each magnificent. The horns in particular on "Land of Hope in Dreams," and the Choir during "Chimes of Freedom," but there were plenty of other moments.

"From the beginning American was born out of disagreement. America is an argument. An ongoing, blessed, sacred argument about what course the country should take. We argue about these things while still recognizing our common humanity, our dignity, and yes, our unity." That all sounds like a Talmudic debate and in that sense seems almost sanitized to me (the sages might have disagreed, but they didn't wish ill on one another, I don't think), or perhaps just aspirational as to what things should be about.

But that, too, was less genteel than earlier in the tour: This night, in addition to the love, faith and spirit, he also emphasized anger as a driving force to get us all through. Several times, he asked that we make ourselves heard "at the fucking White House."

Bruce Springsteen, Max Weinberg, Curtis King and Michelle Moore.
Chimes of Freedom.
Washington, DC, May 27, 2026.
Photo: Matthew Orel

For me, the big DC stadium show felt like a pilgrimage, and I had the sense that others felt it as well. This meant spending the evening with people I hadn't seen, in some cases, in decades; people who'd gotten off the bandwagon at some point, maybe when this tour's previous iterations started out supporting a largely unsuccessful album of soul covers and as a meditation on mortality. And that was good -- it always is -- despite unforced errors such as how and for what prices tickets were sold. But the tour become something else, it was willed to be something else, a tour de force first in Europe in the spring of 2025 and now in the USA. The tour officially shuts down after one more show, but I hope Bruce finds a way to go further still, making more "good trouble."