The Easter season next year will be bringing much more than chocolate to Australian music fans with a swag of international acts set to grace our shores, including The Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen, for a long-awaited 2013 Australian Tour.
Springsteen will play dates in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, and the 63-year-old blue collar hero and his talented six-piece ensemble – featuring Max Weinberg, Steven Van Zandt, Patti Scialfa, Garry Tallent, Roy Bittan, and Nils Lofgren – have confirmed there will be no support slots for their 31/2 hour marathon shows.
Additionally, The Boss and band will play a special one-off show at Hanging Rock, where – as announced yesterday – he and his famous E Street Band will be joined by Cold Chisel frontman Jimmy Barnes, along with ARIA climbing NSW four-piece The Rubens.
However the news isn’t so beautiful for Australia’s West Coast, with the Springsteen clan officially confirming today that there will be no shows for Adelaide or Perth in an issued press release stating: “Unfortunately the tour cannot be extended beyond the cities already announced.”
Going on to say, “the production for this tour is considerable and it is both time consuming and costly to move it from one city to the next within a short space of time. As the tour can only be in the country for a certain period of time it has therefore been limited to the East Coast of Australia.”
Since the initial dates were announced, fans from Perth and Adelaide have been campaigning to bring the Boss to the West, starting an online Facebook petition, urging promoters Frontier Touring to work the cities into the touring schedule.“There is absolutely no disrespect or lack of love for these other cities but in the end the crucial thing was timing…” – Frontier Touring
Frontier’s statement noted: “We’ve received a huge number of messages and enquiries from fans in Perth, Adelaide, and across New Zealand about Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band extending their tour to your cities.” Going on to stress, “There is absolutely no disrespect or lack of love for these other cities but in the end the crucial thing was finding a time period to bring Bruce and the E Street Band out to Australia that worked in with their other commitments.”
While not everyone from the nation’s other half can afford to make the trip over to the east for the shows, many have already planned road trips, with the tour’s organisers acknowledging this as part of their decision making when choosing the dates.
“Notably the decision was deliberately made to route this tour over the Easter period so it would be possible for as many people as possible to travel if they needed to. Again we know it’s not viable for everyone but we’ve tried to put it at a time where you hopefully won’t need to miss work etc.”
Although dates may be too tight to take the tour to the other side of the continent, they leave just enough breathing room to get Springsteen to Byron Bay and back, some time between March 28th and April 1st, intensifying speculation that the legend may make an appearance on the already stellar lineup for Bluesfest.
Nothing has yet been confirmed, but there’s no doubt that with such a tightly woven schedule with the final date being March 30th in Hanging Rock, the Boss and his crew may just make one more stop before he heads out of Oz. Who can blame us for wishful thinking?
With nothing yet confirmed, and tickets for Springsteen’s tour going on presale at noon today before general sales on Friday at 12pm, you may want not want to risk it and take the advice of Frontier and Mushroom Group head honcho Michael Gudinski.
“We’re not getting as many shows as I would have liked, so all I can say I people better move fast,” says the Mushroom Group mogul.
General tickets go on sale on Friday 14 December and are priced between $128.90 and $211.40, with further information at www.frontiertouring.com/brucespringsteen
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Australian Tour 2013
Tickets: $99.50 – $212.35 for arena dates
Hanging Rock Tickets: $128.90 – $211.40
Thursday 14th March – Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane
Tickets: ticketek.com.au | Ph: 132 849
Monday 18th March – Allphones Arena, Sydney
Tickets: ticketek.com.au | Ph: 132 849
Sunday 24th March – Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
Tickets: ticketek.com.au | Ph: 132 849
Saturday 30th March (Easter Saturday) – Hanging Rock, Woodend
Tickets: ticketmaster.com.au | Ph: 136 100
