Bruce Springsteen Leads ‘ICE Out Now’ Chant in D.C.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band brought their “Land of Hope & Dreams” U.S. tour to a rain-soaked, sold-out Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday night, using the capital date to deliver pointed political remarks and galvanise the crowd with chants aimed at the current administration.
During “Streets of Minneapolis,” Springsteen set up a call-and-response around the lyric “ICE out now,” then urged the crowd to project it beyond the venue—at one point telling fans, “Let ’em hear you in the f—in’ White House,” Variety reported.
The set opened with Springsteen’s nightly spoken introduction framing the tour as a choice of “hope over fear” and “democracy over authoritarianism,” before the band launched into Edwin Starr’s “War” and then “Born in the U.S.A.” He later delivered a repeated “This is happening now” monologue criticising policies and actions he attributed to President Trump’s administration, including immigrant detention and institutional pressure on the Supreme Court and Justice Department.
Springsteen also announced the first details of an Oct. 3 “Power to the People” festival outside Washington, with Tom Morello, Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews and Dropkick Murphys among the acts slated to appear—building on earlier reports that Foo Fighters were set to join Springsteen in Washington, D.C.
The night’s performance followed a largely fixed setlist used across this tour leg, with Morello—now a prominent onstage collaborator—featured on roughly half the songs, including “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and “American Skin (41 Shots).” Springsteen again closed with Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom,” underscoring the show’s themes of protest and perseverance as the run heads toward its rescheduled final date in Philadelphia.
