Bruce Springsteen Hits the Road : Rolling Stone

This summer Bruce Springsteen will hit U.S. amphitheaters and arenas with the brand new Seeger Sessions Band, the seventeen-member ensemble which also features his wife Patti Scialfa on vocals. The twenty-three national dates are in support of We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, Springsteen's first-ever album of covers of traditional folk songs, mostly inspired by folk legend Pete Seeger. The album has been a quiet work in progress since as early as 1998, and is finally set for release April 25th.

First, Springsteen will head back to New Jersey's Asbury Park -- the namesake of his 1973 debut, Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ -- for a four-night April residency, followed by a headlining slot at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival on April 30th. After a sold-out May tour in Europe, Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band will return for eighteen stateside dates, beginning May 27th in Boston.

"The album has a light, swinging, incredibly joyful sound to it -- it rocks," Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau told Rolling Stone of We Shall Overcome. "It's folk and old-timey instrumentation mixed with a large horn section and a big vocal-chorus sound."

"It was a carnival ride, the sound of surprise and the pure joy of playing," Springsteen said in a statement about recording the album. "Street corner music, parlor music, tavern music, wilderness music, circus music, church music, gutter music, it was all there waiting in those old songs, some more than one hundred years old . . . It was a way back and forward to the informality, the freeness and the eclecticism of my earliest music and then some."

Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band tour dates:

4/20: Asbury Park, NJ, Convention Hall
4/24: Asbury Park, NJ, Convention Hall
4/25: Asbury Park, NJ, Convention Hall
4/26: Asbury Park, NJ, Convention Hall
4/30: New Orleans, Fairgrounds Racetrack New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
5/27: Boston, TD Banknorth Garden (Fleet Center)
5/28: Bristow, VA, Nissan Pavilion
5/30: Columbus, OH, Germain Amphitheater
5/31: Noblesville, IN, Verizon Wireless Music Center
6/3: Glendale, AZ, Glendale Arena
6/5: Los Angeles, Greek Theatre
6/6: Concord, CA, Chronicle Pavilion
6/10: Des Moines, IA, Wells Fargo Arena
6/11: St. Paul, MN, Xcel Energy Center
6/13: Tinley Park, IL, First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
6/14: Milwaukee, Bradley Center
6/16: Cuyahoga Falls, OH, Blossom Music Center
6/17: Clarkston, MI, DTE Energy Music Theatre
6/20: Camden, NJ, Tweeter Center At The Waterfront
6/21: Saratoga Springs, NY, Saratoga Performing Arts Center
6/22: New York, Madison Square Garden
6/24: Holmdel, NJ, P.N.C. Bank Arts Center
6/25: Holmdel, NJ, P.N.C. Bank Arts Center