After 29 months, six distinct legs, and 130 concerts across practically every corner of Europe and North America, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band finally wrapped up their world tour Thursday evening at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in Milan, Italy.
The setlist was largely standard for this final leg of the tour until the very end when Springsteen strapped his guitar back on after typical show closer “Chimes of Freedom,” and called out, “Key of B, boys. Key of B.” He was instructing them to break into John Fogerty’s 1975 rock anthem “Rockin’ All Over The World,” which is known to most European audiences thanks to Status Quo’s 1977 cover.
“Rockin’ All Over The World” has been in Springsteen’s live repertoire with the E Street Band going all the way back to the 1981 River tour, which also regularly featured Creedence Clearwater Revival covers like “Run Through The Jungle” and “Who’ll Stop The Rain.” In recent years, it’s became a standard last song at tour finales.
The tradition began in Buffalo, New York, on November 22, 2009, on the last stop of the Working on a Dream tour, which was also the last time Springsteen performed in public with Clarence Clemons. It continued in 2012 on the last show of the European Wrecking Ball tour, and in 2016 at the final U.S show of the River tour.
For the first time in a very long time, Springsteen now has a blank concert calendar. There will certainly be future tours, but don’t expect anything on the same grand scale of this last one. “Rather than do a 130-show stretch,” he recently told Rolling Stone, “which we did this time because we had been off for six years, so I had to get back in touch with my audience, and it was fun playing with the band … in the future, I think we’ll probably play more often and less dates.”
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Springsteen has a massive audience in Australia, but he hasn’t toured the continent since 2017. “I’m doing my best as we speak to get down there, hopefully next year sometime,” he told Rolling Stone. “And I feel bad. I apologize to my Australian fans for not getting down on this stretch, but I want them to know that we are planning to get down there as soon as feasible, probably in the next year sometime.”
The end of the Springsteen tour is the start of an historic three-day run for European stadium concerts. It continues Friday night at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, where Oasis will play their first concert since 2008. And it’ll wrap up Saturday at Villa Park in Birmingham, England, where the original Black Sabbath lineup will play their first show in 20 years. They’ll be joined by Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Alice in Chains, Steven Tyler, Sammy Hagar, and many other hard rock and heavy metal icons. For those of you who can’t make it out to Birmingham, it’s streaming online for $29.99.
