E Street Band

This post has been updated. See note below for details. When Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's Wrecking Ball tour hit Kansas City, Mo.,  last month, they opened with Wilbert Harrison's “Kansas City.” Two nights later in Denver, it was Bob Seger's “Get Out of Denver” that got the show rolling. As for the song Springsteen chose to open with in Anaheim on Tuesday night:  "Land of Hope and Dreams. " Who would have guessed? But one of the defining aspects of any Springsteen concert is the way his music encourages listeners everywhere to connect with their own hometowns -- both celebrating their gifts and acknowledging their limitations -- thus making any and every town potentially a “Land of Hope and Dreams.” On the flip side, his attention to how people deal when those hopes dwindle or those dreams go unrealized is what has turned Springsteen's concerts into religious experiences for many.

This post has been updated. See note below for details. Longtime “Breakfast With the Beatles” host Chris Carter will expand the musical scope of his weekly Sirius XM satellite radio presence with a new show, “Chris Carter's British Invasion,” drawing from a half century of British rock and pop beginning Sunday, April 7. The three-hour show will continue airing on Little Steven's Underground Garage Channel 21, created and produced by...

This post has been updated. See note below for details. Longtime “Breakfast With the Beatles” host Chris Carter will expand the musical scope of his weekly Sirius XM satellite radio presence with a new show, “Chris Carter's British Invasion,” drawing from a half century of British rock and pop beginning Sunday, April 7. The three-hour show will continue airing on Little Steven's Underground Garage Channel 21, created and produced by...

Madonna was queen of the world in 2012, at least as far as touring pop music performers, delivering the highest-grossing concert tour of the year and raking in nearly $300 million at the box office worldwide, according to Pollstar, the concert-industry tracking magazine. Madonna's MDNA tour visited 67 cities for 88 performances that grossed $296.1 million, an average of $4.4 million a night, Pollstar's data shows. Her average ticket price was just over $140, far from the priciest concert tickets of the year.

Keyboardist Danny Federici, a low-profile but essential and original member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, died Thursday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City after a three-year battle with melanoma, according to a statement released by Springsteen's publicist. He was 58. "Danny and I worked together for 40 years," Springsteen said in the statement. "He was the most wonderfully fluid keyboard player and a pure, natural musician. I loved him very much.

For anyone who didn't attend Bruce Springsteen's only previous solo acoustic tour a decade ago, it must have felt strange to see the celebrated rocker walk on the Fox Theatre stage Monday without the Big Man, the Professor and the rest of the E Street Band gang. Even though this was clearly labeled a solo tour, numerous fans in the lobby speculated on who from the band would be joining him on this opening night of the tour.

Clarence Clemons, on the phone from his Marin County home, paused to find the right words to describe how he felt when Bruce Springsteen, his boss for nearly two decades, called him and said that he wasn't going to need the E Street Band, at least for now. "It's a blessing," Clemons said. "And also . . . a hurt. "It wasn't what I thought I'd hear. Bruce called me and said that he wanted to try something different.

The sparkling Palau Sant Jordi arena is a long way from the Jersey Shore, where Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band began their legendary association a quarter-century ago. But for 20,000 fans here Friday, it felt like the promised land. Kicking off the most anticipated reunion tour in rock since Bob Dylan and the Band reteamed in 1974, Springsteen and the eight-piece group didn't waste any time demonstrating that they can still make spirits soar.

"There are a lot of ghosts in this place," Bruce Springsteen said as his boots clomped on an ancient staircase at the Asbury Park Convention Hall. It was here in this old seaside venue that Springsteen, as a teenager, watched Jim Morrison prowl the stage and Keith Moon thunder away on drums for the Who. It was also in the corridors here that he brushed past a wild-child named Janis Joplin.

The phone rang, and it was Bruce. That probably meant it was time for the band to tour. But that's not what it meant. This time, in late 1989, Bruce Springsteen told Danny Federeci he was breaking up the band. "I was surprised," Federeci recalled. "I was very hurt. It was the only life I had known for 22 years." Five years later, Federeci, 44, isn't completely healed. He says he is still "working through all that stuff," but he is happy.

Madonna has something new to cheer about. Her MDNA Tour has been crowned the top-grossing concert attraction of the year worldwide by Billboard, surpassing other highly popular road shows by Bruce Springsteen, Roger Waters, Coldplay and Lady Gaga. Madonna's tour grossed $228.4 million over the course of 72 shows (all sold out), according to the magazine's calculations, which are based on figures reported to Billboard Boxscore from Nov. 9, 2011,  to Nov. 13, 2012. Runner-up Springsteen & the E Street Band finished just under the $200-million mark with $199.4 million, also from 72 shows, 54 of which were listed as sellouts.

After a hearty "1, 2, 3, 4!" Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band dived into "Land of Hope of Dreams," in which the rocker opened "121212: The Concert for Sandy Relief" on an inspiring note, singing: Leave behind your sorrows Let this day be the last Tomorrow there'll be sunshine And all this darkness past As he's beein doing on his Wrecking Ball tour, Springsteen segued into a snippet of Curtis Mayfield's gospel-soaked...

The Rolling Stones have jumped aboard the already rock star-studded lineup for next week's benefit concert to raise money for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. The Stones join previously announced performers including Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, Bon Jovi, Kanye West, the Who, Roger Waters, Chris Martin, Alicia Keys, Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder. The show, called “121212: The Concert for Sandy Relief,” will start Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time at Madison Square Garden and benefits the Robin Hood Relief Fund.

One of the aspects of a Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band show that's become ritualized over the years is when he reaches into the audience to pull a fan onstage to reprise a moment in the music video for "Dancing in the Dark,” which originally was handled by then little-known actress Courteney Cox. On Tuesday in Anaheim, that moment took a whimsical turn when Springsteen hoisted up a young girl of maybe 12 to join him near the...

This post has been updated. See note below for details. When Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's Wrecking Ball tour hit Kansas City, Mo.,  last month, they opened with Wilbert Harrison's “Kansas City.” Two nights later in Denver, it was Bob Seger's “Get Out of Denver” that got the show rolling. As for the song Springsteen chose to open with in Anaheim on Tuesday night:  "Land of Hope and Dreams. " Who would have guessed? But one of the defining aspects of any Springsteen concert is the way his music encourages listeners everywhere to connect with their own hometowns -- both celebrating their gifts and acknowledging their limitations -- thus making any and every town potentially a “Land of Hope and Dreams.” On the flip side, his attention to how people deal when those hopes dwindle or those dreams go unrealized is what has turned Springsteen's concerts into religious experiences for many.

This post has been updated. See note below for details. Maybe the Rolling Stones should work up Chuck Berry's “Reelin' and Rockin' ” -- the proto-rock hit in which the singer keeps checking his watch -- now that the group may be facing a fine of more than $300,000 for breaking the local curfew Sunday at their 50th anniversary gig in London. The show was scheduled to wrap at 10:30 p.m., but Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ron Wood continued playing encores until 11:05 p.m., according to the Sun newspaper in London.

Steven Van Zandt's gig on "Not Fade Away" began with a disappointment. The first feature from "Sopranos" creator David Chase, the film follows a group of New Jersey high-school kids as they put together a garage band in the wake of the British Invasion. Chase hired Van Zandt, whom he'd cast as Silvio Dante on HBO's mob series, to oversee the film's music - "to design what the band sounds like as they go from 1962 to 1968, and to have that be authentic," as Van Zandt put it recently in an interview at Hollywood's ArcLight Cinema.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will help anchor another all-star benefit to aid in Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, once again joined by fellow New Jersey and New York artists Jon Bon Jovi and Billy Joel. The Dec. 12 concert "12-12-12" will be held at Madison Square Garden and also feature the likes of Kanye West, Paul McCartney, Alicia Keys, Roger Waters and the Who.  More artists are expected to be unveiled. Ticket information for the concert was not yet released, and the benefit is to be produced by Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, the Madison Square Garden Co. and the Weinstein Co. A press release notes that "telecast information" will also be unveiled in the days to come.  Proceeds from the "12-12-12" concert will go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund, which distributes money and materials to local organizations.

Bruce Springsteen and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie finally have made small steps toward reconciling their long-simmering standoff. Springsteen, a lifelong liberal, has for years given the outspoken Republican governor (and huge Bruce fan) the silent treatment, but he has unqualified praise for Christie's work in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and said so at several concerts. At a news conference Monday, Christie hinted that they made the making-up official during a recent call he made to President Obama, when the president passed the phone to Springsteen, who was traveling with him on Air Force One.  PHOTOS: Hurricane Sandy benefit concert "It was great to talk to the president, and even better to talk to Bruce," Christie joked.