“Too risky at the moment”: America is now so divided that a Bruce Springsteen covers band has been advised not to play in his hometown

It’s a well known fact that Bruce Springsteen is a Democrat. Most specifically he’s a close personal friend of ex-US Democratic president Barack Obama. And while many stars – particularly in the US – believe that music and politics shouldn’t mix, But Springsteen has never been shy about speaking his mind.

Now, those opinions have had an unlikely consequence.

Appearing in Manchester on 14 May, kicking off his E-Street band’s European tour, rock’s most famous working class hero told the audience: “In my home, the America I love – the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years – is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.

"Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!

“The richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. They’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers. They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom,” Springsteen implored.

And it didn’t take long for his words to resonate with the Republican President back home: “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States," Trump said on social media. "Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK.

“This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare.’ Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”

Badlands

With Springsteen currently on tour in Europe – a continent that has recently been rocked by Trump’s turnarounds on NATO and random tariff wrath – it’s likely he was on safe ground. However, back in the US, The Boss’s rabble-rousing soon found a target closer to home.

No Surrender, a Springsteen covers band currently on the road in the US to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Boss’s Born To Run, had been booked to play at Riv’s Toms River Hub, in Toms River, New Jersey, on 30 May. New Jersey, of course, famously being Springsteen’s hometown.

However, on Sunday, the band received correspondence from the venue's owner that an appearance by the band was now “too risky at the moment”.

Hungry Heart

“This is not political for us at all,” Springsten sound-alike Brad Hobicorn told NJ.com. “We’re just a cover band that’s trying to make some money and people rely on it financially. We’re the ones really getting hurt.”

Hobicorn even offered to have his band play a non-Springsteen, classic-rock cover set instead but owner Tony Rivoli refused to pay the agreed $2,500 for a more generic covers band.

“Unfortunately it’s just too much money,” he wrote in text messages obtained by the outlet. “I wanted to do the Springsteen tribute for that money… We would have done well but now because Bruce can’t keep his mouth shut we’re screwed.

“Whenever the national anthem plays, my bar stands and is in total silence, that’s our clientele. Toms River is red and won’t stand for his bulls__t.”

Rivoli later insisted that it was the band themselves that had chosen not to play in Toms Rive, and they told NJ.com that ultimately they did not want to perform there due to “negative vibes” and “a safety concern.”

The band have now been given an alternative venue to play and are currently scheduled to be appearing at New Jersey’s Headliner Oasis in Neptune Township instead.

Blood Brothers

Springsteen met Obama in 2008 when he was on the campaign trail prior to his first run as president. The two shared similar, working class upbringings, dreams, aspirations and opinions as to what should be done and soon Springsteen was a regular at high profile fund-raisers and, in 2020, the pair even produced a podcast together.

Renegades: Born in the USA, a series of conversations between Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen saw the two talk about “their lives, music, and enduring love of America – despite all its challenges”.

“We are both creatures stamped Born in the USA. Guided by our families, our deep friendships and the moral compass inherent in our nation’s history, we press forward, guarding the best of us while retaining a compassionate eye for the struggles of our still young nation,” Springteen told The Guardian in 2021.