Despite precautions, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band struggle with illness on tour

“Don’t worry Columbus we’ll be back!”

That’s the word from Little Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band, via tweet, after the Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band show scheduled for Thursday, March 9, at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, was postponed “due to illness.” On Saturday, March 11, the band's show Sunday, March 12 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut was also postponed due to illness.

Who’s ill, and the type of illness, was not disclosed. Van Zandt downplayed the illness -- but did not specify who was ill -- Saturday afternoon on Twitter.

“No need to be anxious or afraid,” Van Zandt said. “Nothing serious. Just a temporary situation. We will all be back in full force very soon.”

Multiple members of the band have missed shows on the current tour due to COVID, including Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren, Jake Clemons and Soozie Tyrell. The COVID that’s been running through the band has so far not resulted in any long-term issues.

The tour, which began Feb. 1 in Tampa, has appeared to be operating in a bubble to minimize chances of infection. Band members were photographed wearing protective masks during rehearsals at the Vogel, part of the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank. Security and roadies wear masks, including Springsteen guitar tech Kevin Buell. Photographers with close access to the band, including Danny Clinch and Pam Springsteen, the Boss’ sister, also wear them.

During the shows, adherence seems to get a bit more relaxed on stage. Band members engage with the audience, and fans have shared drinks with the Boss while the music plays. The band members’ absences due to COVID have been referred to with frustration and gallows humor by Springsteen. He led a Kansas City crowd at the Feb. 18 show in an anti-COVID chant that we can’t repeat here.

“Good evening Kansas City,” Springsteen said. “We got everybody in the house tonight except Jake Clemons, who’s back at the hotel eating barbecue and watching pornographic films because he has COVID. Repeat after me ... ”

Springsteen, 73, had previously expressed caution about taking the E Street Band on tour in the post-COVID outbreak world.

“As far as my own plans, you know, I think you’re concerned about ever playing again,” Springsteen told Rolling Stone in September 2020. “So that weighs on your mind a little bit because, well, it was fun. Some of the uncertainty that the virus has brought with it is something everybody’s got to live with.”

Audience members needed to be vaccinated and wear masks to attend the second run of “Springsteen on Broadway” in the summer of 2021. Anti-vax protesters clamored across the street of the St. James Theatre on opening night.

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“Hundreds of thousands of people died,” Springsteen told the USA Today Network NJ in 2021. “It can be hard to know what to do. Obviously, I’m in favor of everybody being vaccinated, and that’s why the show is the way that it is.

"Plus, I’m responsible for the safety of my audience, but it’s hard, confusing times, so I actually have some feeling for the folks who were outside.”

There have been no such mandates for fans attending shows on the current tour.

Springsteen show postponements and cancelations are rare, but they do happen. The last Springsteen and E Street Band concert to be postponed was the Sept. 3, 2016, show at the Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater in Virginia Beach, according to the Wiki Brucebase. The area was dealing with the effects of tropical storm Hermine.

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The last show to be canceled outright was the April 10, 2016, concert at the Greensboro Coliseum in North Carolina. It was to protest the state’s then newly passed “bathroom law,” which dictated which public restrooms may be used by transgender individuals and prevented LGBT individuals to sue over human rights violations in the workplace.

The “bathroom law” was later repealed after similar boycotts and national attention brought the issue into focus.

The next show is scheduled for Tuesday, March 14 at the MVP Arena in Albany, N.Y.

Upcoming area shows include the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia on Thursday, March 16; Madison Square Garden in Manhattan on Saturday, April 1; the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Monday, April 3; two at the new USB Arena in Belmont Park, N.Y., on Sunday, April 9, and Tuesday, April 11; and the Prudential Center in Newark on Friday, April 14, to close the run.

The band then heads to Europe to play stadiums there, and returns to North America for stadium and arena shows.

This story was updated on Saturday, March 11.

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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 E Street tour struggling with illness