SAN DIEGO — Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band will perform together in San Diego for the first time in 42 years as part of their first concert tour since 2017. The Tuesday announcement come the same day that Springsteen will receive the prestigious National Medal of Arts from President Joe Biden.
The Dec. 2 performance at Pechanga Arena San Diego is one of two new dates announced Tuesday morning. The other is Aug. 26 at Gillette Stadium, outside Boston, where the tour includes a previously announced Aug. 24 concert.
Tickets for the San Diego show will go on sale Friday. More ticket information appears later in this article.
The Dec. 2 concert will mark a full circle moment for Springsteen and The E Street Band. They last performed together in San Diego on Sept. 2, 1981, at the San Diego Sports Arena. Their Dec. 2 show will be in the same venue, now known as Pechanga Arena San Diego.
Springsteen performed again at the same arena in 1992, with the short-lived group he formed after he announced the dissolution of the E Street Band in 1989.
His only other concert here since then was a solo acoustic date at the San Diego Civic Theatre in 1996. That was a year after the release of his 1995 solo album, "The Ghost of Tom Joad," which included the San Diego-inspired song, "Balboa Park." Springsteen's 1973 classic, "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)," includes the memorable couplet: "I know a pretty little place down in Southern California, down San Diego way/ There's a little cafe, where they play guitars all night and day ..."
"What a great place (San Diego is) to sing that line in 'Rosalita'," E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg said in a 1999 Union-Tribune interview.
It remains unclear what, after more than four decades, has now prompted Springsteen, 73, to finally confirm a return to America's seventh largest city with his E Street Band. In the intervening decades, various concert promoters put in bids to bring him back. None of them were successful — until now.
"We tried to bring Bruce and the band back to San Diego, but it didn't happen for a variety of reasons. So, its great that it worked out now after all this time," said John Wojas, the senior vice president of talent at AEG Presents.
"A lot of it was just a matter of timing. Sometimes, they'd add a third night in Los Angeles or a second in Orange County. After 42 years, we're really excited about Bruce and the E Street Band coming back to San Diego. It's a special event any time he plays."
Springsteen and his two-woman, seven-man band were separately inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in, respectively, 1999 and 2014.
Springsteen has also been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a Kennedy Center Honor, an Academy Award and multiple Grammy Awards. On Tuesday, he is set to receive the National Medal of Arts, the nation's most prestigious award for advancing the arts.
Their 2023 tour opened Feb. 1 in Tampa, Florida, and has seen the group perform more than two-dozen songs nightly. The tour follows the November release of Springsteen's latest solo album, "Only the Strong Survive," which features his versions of vintage R&B and soul chestnuts first recorded by the likes of Jerry Butler, The Four Tops, Frank Wilson, Dobie Gray and Tyrone Davis.
Tickets for the Dec. 2 concert will go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday at axs.com, and at 11 a.m. at the Pechanga Arena box office, 3500 Sports Arena Blvd.
The concert will have a 7:30 p.m. starting time. All seats are reserved, except for 333 general admission directly tickets in front of the stage. Prices have not yet been announced.
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