Bruce Springsteen kicked off his Broadway residency on Thursday. The event named after the amazing rockstar was filled with celebrities that gathered to witness the singer take on New York venue.
‘Springsteen on Broadway’ will run until February the 3rd. The show, which offers an insight to the singer’s early life, was added ten more weeks after tickets sold out on the very first day.
‘Springsteen on Broadway’
Bruce Springsteen has accomplished pretty much everything at his 68-year-old. The legendary singer continues to rock on stages, in fact, last year, he had the No. 2 tour for the year, earning over $255 million, behind Beyonce.
When it comes to off music achievements, he published his memoir ‘Born To Run,’ which chronicled his rise to rock stardom and provided an account of his life as a child.
‘Springsteen on Broadway’, is a deeply personal life story with a soundtrack. The singer takes viewers down the memory lane of his early life as he shares childhood stories and then signs songs related to it.
The 15-track set of his life soundtrack focused primarily on classics such as ‘Dancing in the Dark,’ ‘Thunder Road,’ ‘Born in the U.S.A.’, along with a few deeper cuts throughout ‘Long Walk Home,’ ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’.
“I came from a boardwalk town where everything is tinged with a bit of fraud,” he said during his monologue. “So am I, if you haven’t figured that out yet.”
Springsteen’s heartfelt premiere on Broadway
Bruce’s debut on Broadway started with a heartfelt tribute to his friend Tom Petty, who recently passed away. Springsteen dedicated the first acoustic solo to the late singer-songwriter.
The singer also took to social media to salute Petty.
“Down here on E Street, we’re devastated and heartbroken over the death of Tom Petty. Our hearts go out to his family and bandmates,” he wrote.
The premiere night was a star-studded event, with stars in the like of Steven Spielberg, actor Tom Hanks; actress Tina Fey and her husband composer-actor Jeff Richmond attending the big night. Other personalities included composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, and wife TV host Julie Chen, and designer Ralph Lauren and wife Ricky Anne Loew-Beer.
While promoting his upcoming Broadway show, Springsteen emphasized that his set – and accompanying stories – will stay locked in throughout the run. “I’ve played ‘Born to Run’ many, many times. I’m sure if we went on the internet we could find out how many., ” he said. “But the key is, you have to approach it not as a repetition but as a renewal. And to do that your spirit has got to be 100 percent present. But it’s a new audience every night.”
“But the key is, you have to approach it not as a repetition but as a renewal. And to do that your spirit has got to be 100 percent present. But it’s a new audience every night.”
The show still has ten more weeks to the Broadway run
The singer’s solo show was extended for another 10 weeks, last August. The extension announcement came after the entire initial ten weeks run sold out on the very same day the sale was opened.
The tickets were worth $10,000 a seat when they hit the secondary market. The show is set to be really intimate, as the Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre seats less than 1,000 people, making the space much more intimate than Springsteen’s usual arena venues.
“I wanted to do some shows that were as personal and as intimate as possible,” stated Springsteen when he officially announced the run. “My show is just me, the guitar, the piano and the words and music. Some of the show is spoken, some of it is sung. It loosely follows the arc of my life and my work,” he added.
“All of it together is in pursuit of my constant goal to provide an entertaining evening and to communicate something of value.”
Source: LA Times