Bruce Springsteen in Las Vegas? There are ways it could happen
A Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band tour stop is obviously a great fit for any number of Las Vegas venues. Also obviously, Las Vegas is not listed on his 2023 U.S. tour.
Our best read of this tour is Las Vegas is not out of play. But the tour would need to thread the needle to play either of the biggest venues for a Springsteen show.
Allegiant Stadium has no concerts on the books after Pink’s Oct. 7 show, though the Raiders schedule opens with preseason games in August, running through January and the lead-up to Super Bowl LVIII.
T-Mobile Arena’s final listed concert for 2023 is Madonna’s “Celebration Tour” stops Oct. 7-8.
Springsteen and the E Street Band have been floated as a possible rotating headliner for The MSG Sphere, too, simply because it’s a rare production that could fill the venue. But there has been no verification the band is in talks to headline The Sphere.
Springsteen has not played Las Vegas since his “Rising Tour” stop at the Thomas & Mack Center on Aug. 18, 2002. Prior to that, the band played the MGM Grand Garden on May 27, 2000.
Springsteen opened the tour in Tampa on Feb. 1 and is continuing through Houston’s Toyota Center on Valentine’s Day and the Moody Center in Austin, Texas, on Feb 16. The tour closes its U.S. leg at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., on April 14. Then it’s off to Europe from April through August, then back in the states for a Sept. 7 show at the JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse, N.Y.
Springsteen then performs through Dec. 8, closing at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
The current tour was at the center of a Ticketmaster “dynamic pricing” controversy in July, when the cost of his opening seven dates vaulted to between $4,000-$5,000 apiece.
Springsteen later told Rolling Stone, “What I do is a very simple thing. I tell my guys, ‘Go out and see what everybody else is doing. Let’s charge a little less.’ That’s generally the directions. They go out and set it up. For the past 49 years or however long we’ve been playing, we’ve pretty much been out there under market value. I’ve enjoyed that. It’s been great for the fans.
“This time I told them, ‘Hey, we’re 73 years old. The guys are there. I want to do what everybody else is doing, my peers. So that’s what happened. That’s what they did.’”
Springsteen and The E Street Band have not performed together since February 2017, when the band closed out “The River Tour.” A rumored show in Las Vegas in 2016, for a concert special on HBO, never materialized.
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John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.