Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band touched down in Uncasville, Connecticut, on Friday night for an intimate show at the 10,000-seat Mohegan Sun Arena. It’s the tiniest venue they’ve hit since returning to the road in February 2023, and one of the few casino gigs Springsteen has played in his entire career.
“We’re back!” Springsteen said when taking the stage. “Somebody lost their money! Somebody lost their money or we wouldn’t be back. We’ve got to get paid. But I don’t care if you lost your money or you won your money, tonight we’re going to make you the luckiest people in the world!”
The show kicked off with a pair of 1992 songs that felt appropriate in the casino setting: “Roll of the Dice” and “Lucky Town.” He played “Roll of the Dice” last month at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (which was somehow just the third Vegas gig of his career), but this was the first “Lucky Town” of the year. A much bigger surprise came a few songs later when the band broke into “Seeds” for the first time since a June 2016 gig at London’s Wembley Stadium.
“Seeds” was recorded during the 1983 Born In The U.S.A. sessions at The Hit Factory in New York City, but fans didn’t hear it until the summer of 1985 when he started playing it live. It’s about a desperate man that brings his family down to Texas with the hope of finding work in an oil refinery. They wind up sleeping in their car and tents alongside the highway.
“Parked in the lumberyard freezing our asses off,” Springsteen sings. “Kids in the back seat got a graveyard cough/I’m sleeping up in front with my wife/Billy club tapping on the windshield in the middle of the night/He says, ‘Move along son, move along.’”
A live version of “Seeds” from a September 1985 show at the Los Angeles Coliseum was released in 1986 on the Live 1975–85 box set. It was played at the vast majority of Tunnel of Love Express shows in 1988, and the Great Recession inspired Springsteen to bring it back for most Working on a Dream concerts in 2009, but it’s been a real rarity throughout the past decade.
The last Mohegan Sun surprise took place after “Because The Night” when Springsteen launched into “I’m On Fire” for the first time this year. “I’m on Fire” is one of the biggest hits on Born In The U.S.A., and it remains in regular rotation on classic rock radio, but it’s only sporadically performed live. Of the 12 tracks on Born In The U.S.A., only “Downbound Train” and “I’m Goin’ Down” have been played fewer times.
Many times throughout the show, Springsteen joked that he literally didn’t know where he was. “Uncasville!” he roared near the start of “10th Avenue Freeze-Out.” “Where the fuck am I?” Before wrapping up the show with “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” he addressed the crowd one last time. “I love Uncasville, wherever the fuck it is,” he said. “Matter of fact, I’m moving to Uncasville tomorrow!”
The tour continues April 15 in Albany, New York, before heading to Syracuse, New York, and Columbus, Ohio. In early May, it moves over to Europe for a couple of months. Another American leg begins August 15th in Pittsburgh.
