Bruce Springsteen paid tribute to Robbie Robertson at Wrigley Field tour kickoff (setlist, video)

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band kicked off the second leg of their North American tour on Wednesday night at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. The show began just hours after the news broke that Robbie Robertson of The Band had died at 80. Bruce dedicated the show’s closing song, “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” to “my good friend Robbie Robertson.”

As The Asbury Park Press noted, like Springsteen, Robertson got his start, musically, on the Jersey Shore in the ’60s with The Band at clubs like Tony Marts in Somers Point. You can watch a short clip of Springsteen playing “I’ll See You in My Dreams” solo acoustic at Wrigley Field on Wednesday below.

E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt paid tribute to “good friend and genius” Robertson on Twitter, writing, “The Band’s music shocked the excess out of the Renaissance and were an essential part of the final back-to-the-roots trend of ‘60s. He was an underrated brilliant guitar player adding greatly to Bob Dylan’s best tour & best album.”

The Wrigley Field show was otherwise pretty standard for Springsteen and The E Street Band — a three-hour, two-encore, 26-song marathon featuring tons of favorites and no real surprises for anyone who’s paid attention to setlists on the current tour. You can check out Wednesday’s setlist and a few fan-shot videos below.

Bruce plays Chicago again on Friday and hits his home turf at NJ’s MetLife Stadium on August 30 & September 1.

SETLIST: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band @ Wrigley Field, Chicago 8/9/2023
No Surrender
Ghosts
Prove It All Night
Letter to You
The Promised Land
Out in the Street
Darlington County
Kitty’s Back
Nightshift
The E Street Shuffle
Mary’s Place
Johnny 99
Last Man Standing
Backstreets
Because the Night
She’s the One
Wrecking Ball
The Rising
Badlands
Thunder Road

Encore:
Born to Run
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
Glory Days
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

Encore 2:
I’ll See You in My Dreams