Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band to headline at Glastonbury

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band are to headline the world famous Glastonbury Music Festival at Worthy Farm on Saturday June 28th. This will be Springsteen's first ever Festival Performance in the UK, and comes a day before the already sold out show in Hyde Park London.

The Glastonbury festival attracts crowds close to 100,000 and tickets for the 3 day showcase are now sold out. Festival promoter Micheal Eavis said "He's one of the all-time rock legends and I'm confident that this will be one of our best shows ever,"

London Calling...........Springsteen to play London's Hyde Park

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will headline Hard Rock Calling, in London's Hyde Park on Sunday 28th June, this following a highly rumoured first ever performance at the Glastonbury Music Festival scheduled for 27th June.

Festival shows are forming part of the European Tour, with other shows in Netherlands and France already on the list.

All 45,000 tickets for Hyde Park are reported as sold out.

Best Rock Song Grammy for 'Girls in their Summer Clothes'

A somewhat surprising nomination, but its another Grammy for Springsteen. Girls in Their Summer Clothes, is a deft pop song from Springsteen's 2007 album Magic

Ticketmaster issue Apology on ticket fiasco

Ticketmaster have issued the following apology in light of the recent fiasco, and anger felt by both artist and fans.

An Open Letter of Apology to Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau, and the Entire Springsteen Tour Team, received from Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff and reprinted in its entirety:

While we were genuinely trying to do the right thing for fans in providing more choices when the tickets they requested from the primary on-sale were not available, we clearly missed the mark. Fans are confused and angry, which is the opposite of what we hoped to accomplish. We sincerely apologize to Bruce, his organization and, above all, his fans.

We recognize that we need to change our course. We have committed to Bruce and state publicly here that we have taken down all links for Bruce’s shows directing fans from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow. This redirection only occurred as a choice when we could not satisfy fans’ specific search request for primary ticket inventory, but to make sure there is no misunderstanding in the future, we also publicly state that we will never again link to TicketsNow in a manner that can possibly create any confusion during a high-demand on-sale. Specifically, we will not present an option to go to TicketsNow from Ticketmaster without the consent of the artist and the venue, both of whom work together to bring the joy of live entertainment to millions of fans.

If any fans inadvertently purchased tickets in the resale marketplace believing in error they were purchasing from the initial on-sale, we will refund the difference between the actual purchase price and the face price of the ticket. (Please don’t abuse this good faith gesture – we did not give brokers any preferential access to tickets.)

We are committed to helping deliver the most transparent and best live entertainment experience to fans. We will do better going forward.

Sincerely,
Irving Azoff, CEO, Ticketmaster Entertainment

Grab your ticket? Springsteen slams Ticketmaster

In response to the anger felt by fans, after recent ticketmaster sales for Springsteen's US Tour, diverted fans to secondary market ticket sellers, Bruce Springsteen has slammed ticket organisation Ticketmaster, perceiving the matter to be a breaking of trust and a conflict of interests. In an unprecedented move, Springsteen has issued a letter on his website, detailing just how both he and his management feel about the recent sales.

A Letter to Our Fans:

We know there was much confusion regarding Ticketmaster and TicketsNow during last Monday's on-sale dates. We were as confused as you were, as we were given no advance notice of the major changes in the Ticketmaster-TicketsNow world. (Bear in mind that we are not clients of any ticketing company, and that all those arrangements are between venues and ticketing companies.)

Last Monday, we were informed that Ticketmaster was redirecting your log-in requests for tickets at face value, to their secondary site TicketsNow, which specializes in up-selling tickets at above face value. They did this even when other seats remained available at face value. We condemn this practice.

We perceive this as a pure conflict of interest. Ticketmaster is there to ensure that we have a good, fair sale of our tickets at their face value plus normal ticketing charges. TicketsNow is supposed to be a secondary site where people who already have tickets may exchange, trade, and, unfortunately, speculate with them. We have asked this redirection from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow cease and desist immediately and Ticketmaster has agreed to do so in the future and has removed its unwanted material from their and our site.

We know the many cynical arguments some make in favor of the Ticketmaster system: There are rumors that some artists or managers participate in Ticketmaster charges--we do not. There are rumors that some artists or managers are receiving a percentage of the amount above face value at secondary outlets like TicketsNow--we do not. Some artists or managers may not perceive there to be a conflict between having the distributor of their tickets in effect "scalping" those same tickets through a secondary company like TicketsNow--we do.

While many of you have sent notes to us and your local promoters, you may also send accurate informational letters to Albert Lopez of Ticketmaster [Albert.Lopez@ticketmaster.com] and he will try to address your questions.

A final point for now: the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing. Several newspapers are reporting on this story right now. If you, like us, oppose that idea, you should make it known to your representatives.

The abuse of our fans and our trust by Ticketmaster has made us as furious as it has made many of you. We will continue to do our utmost now and in the future to make sure that these practices are permanently curtailed on our tours.

Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and the entire Springsteen Tour Team

American Tour in Support of Working on a Dream Announced

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band have announced dates in the United States, to beogn in April.

Full dates here

Apr 1 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion at San Jose
Apr 3 Glendale, AZ Jobing.com Center
Apr 5 Austin, TX Frank Erwin Center
Apr 7 Tulsa, OK BOK Center
Apr 8 Houston, TX Toyota Center
Apr 10 Denver, CO Pepsi Arena
Apr 15 Los Angeles, CA LA Memorial Sports Arena

Apr 16 Los Angeles, CA LA Memorial Sports Arena
Apr 21 Boston, MA TD Banknorth Garden
Apr 22 Boston, MA TD Banknorth Garden
Apr 24 Hartford, CT XL Center
Apr 26 Atlanta, GA Philips Arena
Apr 28 Philadelphia, PA Wachovia Spectrum
Apr 29 Philadelphia, PA Wachovia Spectrum

May 2 Greensboro, NC Greensboro Coliseum
May 4 Hempstead, NY Nassau Veterans Mem. Col.
May 5 Charlottesville, VA John Paul Jones Arena
May 7 Toronto, ONT Air Canada Centre
May 8 University Park, PA Bryce Jordan Center
May 11 St. Paul, MN Xcel Energy Center
May 12 Chicago, IL United Center
May 14 Albany, NY Times Union Center
May 15 Hershey, PA Hersheypark Stadium
May 18 Washington, DC Verizon Center
May 19 Pittsburgh, PA Mellon Arena
May 21 E. Rutherford, NJ Izod Center
May 23 E. Rutherford, NJ Izod Center

Springsteen achieves 8th UK Number 1 Album

Working on a Dream has debuted at No1 in the UK Album Chart, giving Springsteen his 8th career No 1 Album in the UK, and his 4th in this decade alone. Elsewhere in Europe, Springsteen has repeated success, as the album reaches No 1 in 15 other European Countries.

The album has recieved mixed critical reviews, but this has not deterred Springsteen fans from turining out in force in the opening week of sales.

I have seen the future of Half Time Entertainment....

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band have performed as the half time entertainment at the Superbowl in Tampa. After years of saying no, Springsteen gave way in late 2008, and this performance has been perhaps the most highly anticipated in Superbowl history.

Set
Tenth Avenue Freeze Out
Working on a Dream
Born to Run
Glory Days