Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band Newark homecoming: The 5 craziest to happen on tour

Welcome home, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

The Boss and Co. play Friday, April 14, at the Prudential Center in Newark to wrap up their arena tour in the United States, which began Feb. 1 in Tampa. They head to Europe to begin a stadium tour there that starts April 28 in Barcelona, Spain, and then head back to North America, for more stadium and arena shows starting with Wrigley Field in Chicago on Aug. 9.

The band returns to New Jersey for three shows at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford on Aug. 30, Sept. 1 and 2.

The night in Newark should be special on Friday. A Springsteen “Fan Fest” will take place at Championship Plaza, located in front of the Prudential Center at Edison Place and Mulberry Street starting at 5 p.m. The B Street Band and deejays will play Boss music, and there will be cornhole, super-sized jenga, food trucks, a beer garden and more.

Down the street, the QXTs Goth club at 248 Mulberry St. is going E Street with a Springsteen pre-show and after show parties, in addition to their famous SO80s dance night.

On Saturday, April 15, the inaugural American Music Honors event, presented by the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music, will take place in the Pollak Theatre on the campus of Monmouth University in West Long Branch. Honorees are Little Steven Van Zandt, Sam Moore of Sam and Dave, Darlene Love and Steve Earle. Presenters include Springsteen, Patti Scialfa, Garry Tallent and Southside Johnny Lyon. Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul will be the house band.

Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul will also play Tuesday, April 18, and Wednesday, April 19, at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank.

It’s been quite a run so far. The E Street shows deliver power, precision and heart. The theme is mortality and its motivational properties. When you see the end coming, rock on into that good night.

It’s been a quirky two months on tour, too. Here’s our look at the five craziest things that have happened to Springsteen and the E Street Band since the shows began in Tampa on Feb. 1.

Little Steven’s clothes

Springsteen has said that no one dresses like Little Steven.

For this tour, Van Zandt has outdone himself — especially when the band takes the stage. The Middletown native wears flamboyant vintage-inspired attire, including a long jacket that evokes a Beau Brummel-meets-steampunk-pirate vibe, and a big, feathered bonnet that he doffs toward the crowd.

He called the hat his "loving tribute to Richard Chamberlain, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, Richard Lester and Roy Kinnear!"

He takes off the hat and jacket for the show. Van Zandt lost a considerable amount of weight before the tour, and he’s now able to squeeze into tight skinny jeans and pointy boots when the music starts.

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COVID, COVID, COVID

COVID-19 left its mark on this tour.

Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren, Jake Clemons and Soozie Tyrell all missed shows due to the E Street variant that ran through the band in the last two months. So far, it has not resulted in any long-term issues.

Shows March 9 in Columbus, Ohio; March 12 in Connecticut; and March 14 in Albany were postponed due to illness. Who was ill, and the type of illness they had, was not disclosed, nor were the postponements mentioned onstage once the band returned.

The tour, which began Feb. 1 in Tampa, has been operating in a bubble to minimize chances of infection. The band members’ absences due to COVID were met with frustration and gallows humor by Springsteen. He led the Kansas City crowd at the Feb. 18 show in an anti-COVID chant that we can’t repeat here.

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A Beatle in the audience

They did not see him standing there, but social media did.

Beatles legend Paul McCartney was spotted singing along to “Glory Days” toward the end of the April 1 concert at Madison Square Garden. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and former New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist were also nearby, and Lundqvist posted a pic of him and Macca together after the show.

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The E Street Band did not know McCartney was in the audience, so no chance of them being star-struck, even if many members have played with him on stage previously.

“Probably better that way,” said Van Zandt on Twitter.

Boss catches a fish

Springsteen went to Seattle’s famous Pike Place Fish Market the day before the E Street Band’s show at the city’s Climate Pledge Arena.

While Springsteen was there, an employee threw him a salmon and the Boss caught it.

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“The Boss has got hands,” said Pike Place fish monger Ryan Rector to the USA Today Network NJ. “He was a natural. The first try he caught it — he did good. He was super friendly, too, and he’s got a good firm handshake on him.”

After the catch, the crew told Bruce to “Hold it up for the world, man!” The scene was caught on a video, which went viral on Feb. 27.

Ticket prices

Ticket onsales for Springsteen and E Street Band tours have drawn attention and scrutiny for a variety of reasons for decades.

The relatively new Ticketmaster dynamic pricing system, which adjusts the price of tickets in real time based on their demand, seems to exploit acts with the most fervent fan bases. After not touring for six years, fans of Springsteen and the E Street Band were very fervent.

When tickets for the current tour went on sale in July 2022, the cost of the dynamically priced tickets shot up, some going as high as $5,000. Some fans lost it. Even Backstreets, the Springsteen fanzine, threw in the towel, citing the ticket prices are part the reason they shut down daily operations.

Yet, as temperatures went down, and shows began to play, ticket prices went down to such a degree that they were under $10 on secondary markets for shows in the Midwest. The February onsales for the tour’s late summer stadium and arena U.S. shows went off without people losing it.

Tickets are currently available for the band’s MetLife Stadium shows later this year via Ticketmaster’s verified resales for under $100 before fees.

“I’ve wrestled with ticketing going back to 1980,” Springsteen told USA Today Network NJ. “It’s a constant issue, that’s all there is to it.”

Go: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 14, Prudential Center, 25 Lafayette St., Newark, resale tickets start at $289; prucenter.com.

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Chris Jordan, a Jersey Shore native, covers entertainment and features for the USA Today Network New Jersey. Contact him at @chrisfhjordan; cjordan@app.com

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play Prudential Center Friday