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What's OnopinionBruce Springsteen won't back down as he issues challenge to Liverpool crowdReview: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Liverpool's Anfield stadium live on the Land of

Hope and Dreams TourliverpoolechoBookmarkShareCommentsWhat's OnopinionBySteve GravesExecutive Editor Digital01:06, 5 JUN 2025BookmarkBruce Springsteen performs on the first night of his two

Anfield dates. Picture: Alex Cropper (Image: Alex Cropper)

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"The America I love and have sung to you about for so long, a beacon of hope for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.

"Tonight we ask all of you who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices, stand with us against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!”

OK, so we're doing this. Bruce Springsteen is in Liverpool for the first time ever but tonight he's got more to offer than happy-to-be-here platitudes and warm words for his hosts.

The Boss means business, and right now his business is saving the world - or at least the world as he knows it.

Tonight at Anfield, Springsteen burns with the fire of the righteous. You can't start a fire without a spark - and on this first night of two in Liverpool, there are sparks aplenty.

He addresses the crowd directly, challenging us all to be accountable, to stand up peacefully and draw a line in the sand as Donald Trump's second term in office unfolds. A further,

more light-hearted challenge comes later - as he exhorts "the house of the champions" to turn up the volume during Wrecking Ball.

These are, he tells us, "perilous times." Well, he should know - he's been chronicling the best and worst of his home country for decades.

What's striking, across a set made up of countless classics, is how much of this his music anticipated, how intertwined he's become in America's story across the decades. He

is right that the times are unprecedented - but so many of his songs from down the years seem to have seen them coming.

He might take little comfort in the fact the political situation has made them so apposite, but apposite they are.

From the post 9/11 elegy The Rising to 2007's Long Walk Home, tonight introduced as a "prayer for my country", stretching back to Born in the USA's complicated relationship with

Reaganism, Springsteen's work has been intrinsically linked to politics.

That connection has never been stronger - and nor has his resolve to tell things as they are, to challenge our complacency and to urge us all to act.

Anfield Stadium, Liverpool (Image: Alex Cropper)

His analysis is stark and brooks no argument. "It’s in the union of people around a common set of values. That’s all that stands between democracy and authoritarianism.

"In America right now we have to organise at home, at work, peacefully in the street. We thank the British people for their support because, at the end of the day, all we have is each

other."

Preaching to the converted? Perhaps, but maybe we need a bit of preaching to every now and again.

Tonight Springsteen has his perfect pulpit, an Anfield stage set for music royalty, with a crowd that could not be more receptive in the city where, he tells us, it "all began" for him and

the E Street Band.

The setlist is shaken up from previous nights on the Land of Hope and Dreams tour, making a mockery of this reviewer's attempts at predictions.

Springsteen could pick 27 songs from anywhere in his catalogue and they'd all be winners, and tonight he brings out many of his biggest guns.

Highlights are drawn from right across his career, from the stirring Death to My Hometown to a rendition of Atlantic City which tests its structure almost to destruction. Like all the best

songs, it stands up to the examination.

The Promised Land prompts a walkabout across the front of the stage, the Boss in full communion with his public. He stays among them for Hungry Heart, so well-known to the crowd he barely

sings a note.

One thing everyone tells you about Springsteen shows is how long they are - as if, short of any other reason to object, we must complain at having too much of a good thing.

Springsteen performing at Anfield. Pic: Alex Cropper

Tonight, though, it feels like the time flies. From unexpected opener My Love Will Not Let You Down to the pre-encore certainty Thunder Road, there's not a minute wasted.

This is a taut, lean set, with the E Street Band at the top of their game and Springsteen's energy carrying all before it.

After Thunder Road all bets are off, as the briefest of pauses leads us in to Born in the USA, Born to Run and the rest.

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out is accompanied by a touching tribute to the late E Street band saxophonist Clarence Clemons, while a cover of Twist and Shout is one of few nods to the show's

setting on the night.

Don't be fooled by these reflections on the past - tonight is not about wallowing in nostalgia. For Springsteen the times are too pressing, the situation too dire, to indulge in pining

for what once was.

Few gigs in this city can have felt more important, more urgent, more alive. That it takes a 75-year-old from New Jersey to tell us what we need to hear might say more about us than it does

about him, but most importantly tonight says something - something as profound as you'll have seen on a stage in many a year.

If you have a ticket for Saturday night's second Anfield show, you're among the luckiest people in this or any city on earth. You will be in the presence of greatness.

Do whatever it takes to get there. And let freedom ring.

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