"VOTE FOR CHANGE" IS GONNA COME: BRUCE & THE E STREET BAND TO KICK OFF MINI-TOUR OCTOBER 1
Tickets on sale August 21 for five-night mini-tour with R.E.M. and John Fogerty
One year after the Rising tour's end, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be back on the road for a multi-artist tour with purpose, the likes of which Springsteen fans haven't seen since the 1988 Human Rights Now! Tour for Amnesty International. This time, the banner is Vote for Change, a "loose coalition of musicians brought together by a single idea -- the need to make a change in the direction of our country."

A month before the Presidential election, starting on October 1, Springsteen and the E Street Band will join a large group of fellow musicians to make their voices heard at concerts in swing states. The "Vote for Change" Tour is a multi-city, multi-artist tour that focuses on key electoral battleground states, bringing Springsteen and the E Streeters to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and Florida. Sharing the bill at each stop will be R.E.M., John Fogerty, and Bright Eyes. Click here for the full itinerary.

Springsteen talked to Backstreets editor Chris Phillips while gearing up for the tour announcement: "I always believed that it was good for the artist to remain distant from the seat of power, to retain your independent voice, and that was just the way I liked to conduct my work. But the stakes in this one are just too high. I felt like, given what I've written about, the things that I've wanted our band to stand for over the years, it's just too big a battle to lay out of."

Also playing Vote For Change concerts at the same time (hitting other cities in the same states, as well as Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri): Pearl Jam, Death Cab for Cutie, Dixie Chicks, James Taylor, Dave Matthews Band, Ben Harper, Jurassic 5, My Morning Jacket, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Keb' Mo', Babyface, John Mellencamp, and more. In all, there will be roughly 34 shows in 28 cities in just over a week.

A statement from the coalition lays out their mission in clear terms: "We share a belief that this is the most important election of our lifetime. We are fighting for a government that is open, rational, just and progressive. And we intend to be heard. We plan to do something never done before -- to concentrate our energies in the states where the election is expected to be closest. We hope this commitment of time and effort by so many artists and our willingness to take our energy to so many parts of the country will help inspire our fellow citizens to take a hard look at what is at stake in this election, at the federal, state, and local level, and to get involved in trying to move our country in a truly compassionate and humane direction ... Most importantly, we wish to communicate our concerns to our fellow citizens and join with them in the effort to change the direction of our government towards one that will make our country as great as it can be."

The Vote for Change Tour is presented by MoveOn PAC/MoveOn.org with all concert proceeds benefitting America Coming Together. All the artists will be donating their time and talent for the tour.

Tickets: All Vote for Change concert tickets go on sale through Ticketmaster on August 21. For Springsteen's itinerary, as well as additional ticket sale information as soon as it's available, see our Tour/Ticket Info page. And of course, we'll be following the tour blow-by-blow on our setlists page.

Press: In conjunction with the tour announcement, Springsteen will appear on the August 4 edition of ABC's Nightline, interviewed by Ted Koppel, at 11:35 Eastern. For more related press as it comes in, check our "Out on the Wire" column at right. And come on back to this very page this afternoon, for our own first-ever interview with Springsteen, as he talks to Backstreets about his motivations behind these concerts, misinterpretation of his songs, and how activism affects the artist/audience bond.
- August 4, 2004