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Springsteen issues live videos from Minneapolis tour opener

Chris Riemenschneider, The Minnesota Star Tribune on

Published in Entertainment News

MINNEAPOLIS — It was a good night for fans and the Boss.

The rave response Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band got from 18,000 fans at the March 31 tour kickoff show at Target Center has been reciprocated by Springsteen’s team, which just released videos of two special moments in the nearly three-hour show.

Fans around the world now can see and hear the New Jersey rock vets take on Prince’s “Purple Rain” in Minneapolis as well as their first-ever live performance of “Streets of Minneapolis,” the song Springsteen wrote in response to ICE’s Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities.

“For the maestro,” Springsteen says at the start of the “Purple Rain” performance, which came at the end of the concert. He and the band paired it with a cover from another Minnesota music legend, Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom.”

It was the fourth time they had performed Prince’s anthem onstage, going back to an April 23, 2016, show at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, two days after Prince died. In the case of this newly released version, E Street’s Nils Lofgren sounds very maestro-like during the song’s epic guitar crescendo, trading licks with guest guitarist Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine).

As for “Streets of Minneapolis,” the video of that performance includes the lengthy and unabated speech Springsteen gave to set up the song at the Target Center. He delivered nearly the same comments at his two previous solo performances of it in town, including the ICE protest concert led by Morello at First Avenue in January as well as the March 28 No Kings rally at the Minnesota State Capitol.

 

“This past winter, federal troops brought death and terror to the streets of Minneapolis,” he tells the crowd in the video. “Well, they picked the wrong town. The power, the solidarity of the people of Minneapolis, of Minnesota, was an inspiration to the entire country. Your strength and your commitment told us this is still America. And this will not stand.”

Each of the new performance clips was shot by a full-scale film crew led by director Chris Hilson, who was also behind some of Springsteen’s concert films, including “London Calling: Live in Hyde Park” (2010) and the post-9/11 show “Live in New York City” (2011).

Could this new footage mean that the plainly meaningful Minneapolis date might also wind up being a full concert film? It seems likely. Time will tell. In the meantime, an audio recording of the entire Target Center performance already has been issued via the concert recording site Nugs.com and is earning widespread raves from non-Minnesotan circles. It costs $14.99 to download or can be streamed with a membership.

Springsteen and E Street have played four more U.S. dates on their Land Hopes & Dreams Tour since Minneapolis and are set to do another on April 13 in San Francisco.


©2026 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

 

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