Boss Winds Up World Tour

Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band's 14-month concert tour, during which they performed for more than 2 million people around the world, has come to an end.

It included a stunning 13 stadium dates this summer and fall in the New York area alone — 10 at Giants Stadium and the final three at Shea Stadium. The schedule was designed to ensure that anybody who wanted to see the show could find a ticket.
The tour is likely to fall just short of being the most lucrative concert tour of all time in North America — a $121.2 million record set by the Rolling Stones in 1994, according to Pollstar magazine.

Springsteen and his band, with Bob Dylan as a one-song guest, wrapped it up Saturday at Shea Stadium, across the Hudson River from where their tour began in August 2002 in northern New Jersey.

"Welcome to the last dance," Springsteen said to nearly 50,000 fans. "I'm getting a little misty right about now."

For the New York region, the epicenter of the Boss' popularity, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were a fresher wound when the tour started. Half of Springsteen's set that first night came from "The Rising," his album inspired by the event, then approaching its first anniversary.

At the tour's end, it was the war in Iraq that fed a steely resolve in Springsteen.

He opened with an infrequently performed song, "Code of Silence," featuring the angry lyrics: "We keep pretending that there's nothing wrong. It's a code of silence and it can't go on."

Later, Springsteen criticized leaders "playing with the truth during wartime." Although in recent concerts he's flashed a video clip of President Bush talking about weapons of mass destruction, Springsteen mentioned no names Saturday, and carefully noted that such things had happened in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

"It's a good time to be good, vigilant citizens, demanding accountability from our leaders," he said. "Taking time to search out for the truth is the American way. I learned that from Bob Dylan."

Dylan was a surprise guest during Springsteen's first encore, drawing a huge roar from the crowd. He performed "Highway 61 Revisited" with the E Street Band before disappearing offstage.

Springsteen seemed more at home with material from "The Rising" than he had 14 months earlier. The album provided eight of the night's 30 songs. Particularly effective were "My City of Ruins," which Springsteen began alone on the piano, and "Waitin' on a Sunny Day," which has become an audience singalong favorite.

Upon reuniting a few years ago, the E Street Band stuck mostly with material at least 20 years old. Now they're digging deeper into Springsteen's songbook. Relatively rare cuts that made the set list on the tour's last night were "I Wish I Were Blind" and "Tunnel of Love."

The crisp autumn air added to Saturday's feeling of finality. A cold rain ended just as Springsteen and the band took the stage.

The three-hour, 15-minute show ended with Springsteen's attempt to make a stadium feel like a roadside bar. The stands shook during an old favorite, "Rosalita," and singer Gary U.S. Bonds joined Springsteen for "Quarter to Three" and "Twist and Shout." The latter was a nod to the Beatles, for whom Shea Stadium was a memorable venue four decades ago.

The night ended a few minutes before midnight with band members lined up onstage, holding hands, singing, "Blood Brothers."

"Til we meet again," Springsteen said, and left with a wave.