Bruce Springsteen Firecracker Show

The Tunnel of Love tour again? That’s surely a sentiment some are expressing with this month’s release of New York 5/16/88, the outstanding opening night performance from the final, five-show stand on the US leg of the 1988 tour.

Imagine that years after your favorite television series had ended (be it Seinfeld, The Sopranos, Stath Lets Flats, Twin Peaks or any other), you learned that additional episodes had been shot during the show’s best years and were about to be released in pristine quality. Would it matter that you had already watched dozens of episodes from the same season?

When news first emerged in late 1989 that the E Street Band had been dismissed indefinitely by Bruce Springsteen, it began nine years of uncertainty and speculation as to when, if ever, they would join forces again. They did come back together to record new material for Greatest Hits in 1995 and undertook a small series of promotional appearances in support of it, but the fact that they parted ways again without touring only made the odds of a full return feel even longer.

Never in rock & roll history has there been a production like Springsteen on Broadway. Following a busy 2016 which opened with him touring a revival of The River with the E-Street Band and concluded with the publication of his autobiography Born to Run, Springsteen decided to stay in one place for 2017 – New York City, to be specific, where he began a residency at the Walter Kerr Theatre in October 2017, performing a show based on his memoir. Springsteen on Broadway turned out to be a runaway success, staying on Broadway through December 15, 2018 and commemorated with a Netflix special supported by this double-disc document of the show.

As measured by cultural impact and mass popularity, Bruce Springsteen’s 1984-85 World Tour was the apex. Considering its stunning scale, playing multi-night stadium stands, it’s easy to forget that 1984 was a rebirth of sorts, the start of a new era as much as a continuation of what came before it. On the biggest tour of his career, Springsteen was rebuilding the engine while the plane was flying.