Bruce Springsteen - 2013-05-08 HK Areena, Turku, Finland (2025) [Hi-Res]

By Erik Flannigan

The 2012-2013 Wrecking Ball tour marked the start of the current incarnation of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. It was the first without late, great founding members Danny Federici and Clarence Clemons, and the tour served in part as a eulogy to those fallen heroes.

The passing of Phantom Dan and the Big Man also triggered major changes on stage: Wrecking Ball featured an exponential expansion of the ESB, ushering in a horn section, backing singers, and a percussionist—a blueprint still in use when Springsteen returned to the road in 2023 and retained through the last concert in Milan this past July.

Given how many new musicians were involved, it's remarkable that the 2012-13 tour essayed 230 different songs over the course of 133 shows (per the still indispensable Brucebase), the most of any E Street tour ever. Seismic setlist changes were the norm, triggered by a continuation of the fan-sign-request movement that took hold on the Working on a Dream tour in 2009, and bolstered by Springsteen’s growing willingness to meet superfans where we/they are, embracing constant risk-taking and catalog deep dives.