Bruce Springsteen performed Thursday night at the Music America: The Songs that Shaped Us concert in Monmouth, New Jersey, taking the stage near the end of the night after watching much of the event from the audience.
The lineup included Kenny Chesney, the Dropkick Murphys, Roseanne Cash, Shemekia Copeland, Valerie June, Keb Mo, and Trombone Shorty. Little Steven's Disciples of Soul served as the house band for the 250-year celebration of American music.
Springsteen opened with a duet on "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)" alongside Roseanne Cash—a Woody Guthrie classic he hadn't performed live for a crowd since 1996. "This is a song of Woody's that could have been written yesterday," he told the crowd, referencing both Minnesota and Delaney Hall ICE detention center in Newark. "This is happening now."
Kenny Chesney joined Springsteen for "This Land Is Your Land," with the Boss calling it "certainly the greatest folk song ever written about our beautiful country."
Springsteen invoked Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie's legacies, sharing stories about singing with Seeger at President Obama's first inauguration. "Pete's ghost is in this room tonight," he said as he urged the audience to sing along.
The Dropkick Murphys joined Springsteen for "I'm Shipping Off to Boston," their 2006 song based on a lyric fragment from the Guthrie archives. Frontman Ken Casey quipped, "This is the first time the Dropkick Murphys have ever played on a stage with a carpet."
The concert celebrated the upcoming opening of the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music.
