The River Tour was a concert tour by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in support of Springsteen's 2015 The Ties That Bind: The River Collection box set and in celebration of the 35th anniversary of Springsteen's 1980 album, The River. The River Tour ended in September 2016. Subsequently, the Summer '17 tour in Australia and New Zealand continued the tour using the same promotional image from the original legs.
The River Tour was the top grossing worldwide tour of 2016, pulling in $268.3 million globally, and was the highest-grossing tour since 2014 for any artist. Springsteen and the E Street Band also hold the biggest boxscore for 2016, with the May 27 and 29 shows at Dublin's Croke Park taking in $19,228,100 from 160,188 attendance for two sellout shows.
The tour marked the first tour in two years for Springsteen and the E Street Band. All shows on the first North American leg of tour and some shows from the second leg featured a full-length sequential performance of The River album. Other shows featured a large part of the album, albeit not always in album order. Many of the shows lasted over three and a half hours with around 33 songs performed. Springsteen's show on September 7, 2016, at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia clocked in at 4 hours and 4 minutes, his longest show in the United States and the second-longest ever in his career, at two minutes shy of his 2012 show in Helsinki.
The tour was attended by many notable celebrities including; Snoop Dogg (LA show) Aimee Soller (KFC Yum! Centre) Matt Damon (Albany Show)
Background The original River Tour began in October 1980 and continued through September 1981. With sets that regularly approached the four-hour range, the 140-date international tour firmly established a reputation for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band as marathon performers.
Springsteen released The Ties That Bind: The River Collection on December 4, 2015. The box set features the original 1980 The River album along with many outtakes from the album's sessions.
The tour was announced on December 4, 2015, with tickets going on sale seven days later. It came unexpectedly, as Springsteen was working on a new solo album and planned to tour in support of that. However, with it already having been two years since his last tour with the E Street Band, Springsteen chose not to delay the next band tour even further. In November 2015, Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, suggested performing The River at a few small shows in New York City and Los Angeles; however, Springsteen said it would take too long to rehearse and suggested doing twenty shows. Drummer Max Weinberg said he got the call from Springsteen on Thanksgiving, a week before the tour was announced to the public. "In all of my professional engagements, I have what I call the Springsteen Clause. It's inviolate. It's my own version of force majeure. It's an act of God or Bruce Springsteen. And it works all the time," Weinberg said. Nils Lofgren had to change dates on his solo tour, while Gary Tallent had to postpone his.
This was the first Springsteen tour in which all dates featured the same album performed in its entirety. Unlike the previous few tours, the touring lineup was downsized and did not feature a full horn section or backing vocalists. "I knew the basis of the show was going to be The River, and that was a small rock group. The tighter lineup feels much more like the old days", Springsteen said. Like previous tours, Patti Scialfa was not present at every show due to her responsibilities as a mother supporting her daughter in her equestrian career. Due to Scialfa's not being present at every show, along with no choir, Garry Tallent, standing in her spot on stage, sang backup vocals on a consistent basis on the front line.
Itinerary
North American leg 1 The tour got underway in Pittsburgh on January 16, 2016. Each show kicked off with "Meet Me in the City", followed by the full album performance of The River, and concluding with a twelve-song set featuring songs from the rest of Springsteen's catalog. The show usually finished with a cover of the Isley Brothers' "Shout". The show scheduled for January 24, 2016, at Madison Square Garden was postponed due to a record-setting snowstorm that hit the East Coast. The show was rescheduled for March 28. On April 23, 2016, at the first of two Brooklyn shows to end the first leg of the tour, Springsteen said that Brooklyn would mark "the last two nights we're officially playing The River from start to finish". That night he opened with "Purple Rain" in tribute to Prince, who had just died.
European leg On July 13, 2016, for the first time since the end of the first North American leg of the tour, The River was performed in its entirety.
North American leg 2 Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off the second North American leg of the tour on August 23, 2016, in East Rutherford, New Jersey, at MetLife Stadium. The show opened with a performance of "New York City Serenade"; that song became the opener for all shows on this leg of the tour. The final MetLife Stadium performance on August 30 clocked in at over 4 hours and opened with a run of nine original songs written in 1973 or earlier, plus early live favorites Summertime Blues and Pretty Flamingo. The practice of playing a string of tracks from Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., and The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle continued throughout the rest of this leg.
The show on September 3, 2016, in Virginia Beach was postponed until September 5, 2016, due to inclement weather. On September 7, 2016, at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Springsteen played for 4 hours and 4 minutes, his longest show in the United States and second-longest ever. Springsteen performed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2016, the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The show featured six songs from Springsteen's 9/11 inspired album, The Rising. Springsteen wrapped up The River Tour 2016 on September 14, 2016, in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
Oceania leg / Summer '17 Tour On September 12, 2016, a fourth leg of the tour was announced that included nine shows in Australia and New Zealand in early 2017, named Summer '17 but using the same promotional artwork as the 2016 tour.
Springsteen's concert in Christchurch on February 21, 2017, fell on the eve of the anniversary of the earthquake which devastated the city's center. In the weeks that followed the quake, Springsteen's song "My City of Ruins" was adopted by Christchurch as an unofficial anthem. Springsteen played the song during the concert, dedicating it to the people of the city.
Record-breaking shows Springsteen has been known for lengthy shows, and this tour continued that trend. The show on September 7, 2016, at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, ran 4 hours and 4 minutes, which stands as Springsteen's longest show in the United States and second-longest ever after a 2012 show in Helsinki that ran two minutes longer.
Ticket scalping As with previous Springsteen tours, ticket scalpers were a major problem when it came to buying tickets. Tickets for Springsteen's New York City shows began popping up on resale sites such as StubHub and eBay on December 7, 2015, four days before they went on sale to the public. Scalpers were re-selling tickets not yet available for as much as $5,000. This prompted New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to launch an investigation into how this happened and to write a letter demanding that both companies immediately remove any listings for ticket sales. When tickets finally went on sale on December 11, many fans again were shut out from buying tickets as most venues sold out quickly; within minutes, tickets were appearing for hundreds to thousands of dollars more on resale sites. According to reports, Springsteen's shows sold out in record time. Springsteen's show in Newark, New Jersey, at the Prudential Center sold out in a few minutes. His previous 2012 show at the same venue took two hours to sell out.
Recordings All shows were professionally recorded and released on live.brucespringsteen.net. Many were also featured on E Street Radio.
Set list This set list is representative of the average setlist of the tour's first North American leg as conducted by Setlist.fm, which represents all concerts for the duration of the tour's first leg. The full album performance was dropped following the first leg, although it was resurrected for a few shows on the second leg of the tour.
"Meet Me in the City" The River "The Ties That Bind" "Sherry Darling" "Jackson Cage" "Two Hearts" "Independence Day" "Hungry Heart" "Out in the Street" "Crush on You" "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)" "I Wanna Marry You" "The River" "Point Blank" "Cadillac Ranch" "I'm a Rocker" "Fade Away" "Stolen Car" "Ramrod" "The Price You Pay" "Drive All Night" "Wreck on the Highway" Post-River "Badlands" "Lonesome Day" "No Surrender" "She's the One" "Because the Night" "The Rising" "Thunder Road" Encore "Born to Run" "Dancing in the Dark" "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" "Bobby Jean" "Shout" (The Isley Brothers cover)
Tour dates + List of concerts, showing date, city, country, venue, tickets sold, number of available tickets and amount of gross revenue Date City Country Venue Opening Act Attendance Revenue North AmericaNorth America box score:
January 16, 2016PittsburghUnited StatesConsol Energy Centerrowspan="37" 18,353 / 18,353$2,412,020 January 19, 2016ChicagoUnited Center19,120 / 19,120$2,756,475 January 27, 2016New York CityMadison Square Garden18,474 / 18,474$2,508,528 January 29, 2016Washington, D.C.Verizon Center18,093 / 18,093$2,383,850 January 31, 2016NewarkPrudential Center16,539 / 16,539$2,227,836 February 2, 2016TorontoCanadaAir Canada Centre18,134 / 18,134$1,793,936 February 4, 2016BostonUnited StatesTD Garden17,039 / 17,039$2,062,417 February 8, 2016AlbanyTimes Union Center15,162 / 15,162$1,966,730 February 10, 2016HartfordXL Center14,672 / 14,672$2,080,294 February 12, 2016PhiladelphiaWells Fargo Center19,411 / 19,411$2,503,356 February 16, 2016SunriseBB&T Center18,658 / 18,658$2,174,905 February 18, 2016AtlantaPhilips Arena16,713 / 17,450$1,888,030 February 21, 2016LouisvilleKFC Yum! Center15,730 / 16,900$1,847,730 February 23, 2016ClevelandQuicken Loans Arena19,071 / 19,071$2,520,055 February 25, 2016BuffaloFirst Niagara Center18,351 / 18,351$2,186,795 February 27, 2016RochesterBlue Cross Arena12,581 / 12,581$1,712,080 February 29, 2016Saint PaulXcel Energy Center18,628 / 18,628$2,576,190 March 3, 2016MilwaukeeBMO Harris Bradley Center17,653 / 17,653$1,969,655 March 6, 2016St. LouisChaifetz Arena9,965 / 9,965$1,334,370 March 10, 2016PhoenixTalking Stick Resort Arena16,480 / 16,480$2,050,630 March 13, 2016OaklandOracle Arena17,117 / 17,117$2,245,715 March 15, 2016Los AngelesMemorial Sports Arena 49,302 / 49,302 $7,050,775 March 17, 2016 March 19, 2016 March 22, 2016PortlandModa Center12,074 / 13,700$1,639,915 March 24, 2016SeattleKeyArena14,767 / 14,767$1,929,695 March 28, 2016New York CityMadison Square Garden18,484 / 18,484$2,508,003 March 31, 2016DenverPepsi Center16,770 / 18,540$2,211,320 April 3, 2016Oklahoma CityChesapeake Energy Arena12,603 / 14,332$1,557,353 April 5, 2016DallasAmerican Airlines Center15,563 / 16,961$1,991,405 April 7, 2016Kansas CitySprint Center12,286 / 13,813$1,557,745 April 12, 2016ColumbusSchottenstein Center12,008 / 13,941$1,568,810 April 14, 2016Auburn HillsThe Palace of Auburn Hills15,754 / 15,754$1,949,443 April 18, 2016University ParkBryce Jordan Center14,447 / 15,000$2,038,548 April 20, 2016BaltimoreRoyal Farms Arena14,124 / 14,124$2,054,260 April 23, 2016BrooklynBarclays Center 33,248 / 33,248 $4,641,260 April 25, 2016 EuropeEurope box score: