WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
New documentary from Hulu and Disney Road diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band reveals never-before-seen details and images about the legendary singer/songwriter. Born in Freehold, New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen is one of the most prolific American rock and roll singers, songwriters and artists to ever live. He founded the E Street Band to record his debut album Greetings from Ashbury Park, NJ in October 1972. AE Street Band originally consisted of Garry Tallent (bass), Clarence Clemons (saxophone), Danny Federici (keyboards), Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez (drums), and David Sancious (keyboards).
road diary offers a behind-the-scenes look at the rehearsal process leading up to Bruce Springsteen’s current world tour with the E Street Band. The tour began on February 1, 2023, in Tampa, Florida, and is expected to be completed on July 2, 2025. Springsteen was forced to miss several 2023 tour dates due to illness. The current E Street Band consists of Roy Bittan (piano, synthesizer), Nils Lofgren (electric and acoustic guitar), Garry Tallent (bass), Max Weinberg (drums), Steven Van Zandt (lead guitar), Jake Clemons (saxophone), Soozie Tyrell (violin), Charles Giordano (organ) and Patti Scialfa (background vocals), who has appeared in selected shows due to her health.
road diary initially premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024. The documentary is directed by Thom Zimny, who filmed many of Springsteen’s other documentaries, such as Bruce Spingsteen’s letter to you (2020) and Springsteen on Broadway (2018), music videos such as “Radio Nowhere” and “Western Stars”, and several live concert specials. Zimny ​​was also behind the creation of the recent Beach Boys documentary on Disney+ and in 2018 Elvis Presley: the seeker. road diary it currently has a 90% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and is streaming now on Hulu and Disney+.
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Bruce promised E Street Band a big comeback tour after Covid
Around the 2 minute mark in Road Diary
One of the first things Bruce reveals during his narration in Road Diary is that he promised himself, his fans, and the E Street Band that as soon as the worldwide pandemic and lockdown ended, they would begin planning another world tour. The words he uses specifically are “IIf we ever got over this, I’d throw the biggest party I could.” Bruce emphasizes how his purpose in life is not just to write songs and make music, but to be on stage with thousands of people and share the experience of being alive. It is evident that even as he grows older, his spirit and fire for his passion did not cool down even one degree.
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Bruce achieves two crucial goals during the beginning of each rehearsal
Around the 4 minute mark in Road Diary
Also in the first few minutes road diaryBruce dives right into his rehearsal process with the E Street Band and reveals the two essential things he tries to accomplish at the start of every tour. The first is that he must find a way to shake off the band’s cobwebs to get to the heart of the process. This allows for a much more fluid creative process that doesn’t feel like it just moves on. As it was the group’s first tour in six years, there were extra cobwebs to shake off from years of inactivity. Number two is finding the right setlist, which ultimately communicates the story the band wants to tell at that moment.
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AE Street Band rehearsed without Bruce for the first time
Around the 21-minute mark in Road Diary
road diary reveals that for the first time in the band’s career, the E Street Band rehearsed without Bruce. The documentary shows that Bruce was not as rigid or obsessive about rehearsals as she had notoriously been in the past, relying instead on her faith in the abilities and experience of her band members. Even though Bruce was acting in good faith, guitarist Steven Van Zandt suggested that he should keep the bad stuff just to tweak a few things. Bruce agreed and named him the tour’s official musical director, which makes Steve laugh in the documentary. “40 years late, but that’s okay.” Bruce was worried about “getting too good” and being too tight for the live shows.
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Bruce knew the tour’s setlist from the first day of rehearsals
Around the 32-minute mark in Road Diary
Bruce entered rehearsals on the first day with a full setlist of up to 30 songs. The final setlist ended up being a total of 28 songs that started with “No Surrender” and ended with “I’ll See You In My Dreams”. Bruce makes this clear all the time road diary that his setlist is very intentional and aligned with the story he wants to tell at this point in his life. However, he doesn’t reveal much about what the exact story is, calling on fans to crack his code for themselves. Some people interviewed in the documentary found facing mortality a common theme, especially with the inclusion of the song “Last Man Standing”.
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Bruce and the E Street Band gather in a circle before every show
Around the 37-minute mark in Road Diary
Bruce and the E Street Band have a brief but meaningful ritual they perform before every live performance. All the bandmates gather backstage and wait for Bruce to arrive at the set where he always arrives with something new to contribute and set the tone for the night. It’s revealed that sometimes Bruce tells a joke, while other times he chooses to be more solemn, but the notion of his words is emblematic of the show’s very purpose as an improvised encapsulation of the current moment. AE Street Band gathers in a circle to bond before taking the stage for their 3-hour sets.
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Bruce works out at the gym the morning after the live shows
Around the 44-minute mark on Road Diary
Bruce notably has a lot of energy at his age, even in the mornings after giving his all in his live performances. A band member reveals that he would find Bruce at the gym the morning after the show, at 7am, working out. Bruce told him, “That’s how I like to see my boys, in the gym ready to go.” The bandmate, who was a new addition to the team, called Bruce very impressive and was surprised to see him there. This shows how hung up Bruce is on performing at his best so he can give the audience the your best on stage.
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Bruce continues to leave room for improvisation in shows
Around the 59-minute mark on Road Diary
Although Bruce and the E-street Band are years past their “Stump The E-Street Band” tour, during which they took random suggestions from fans, Bruce still makes a point of leaving room for improvisation and humor in his modern live sets. The setlist for Bruce’s 2023-2025 tour is set, but each show offers a new opportunity to add something new to the music or change things up based on the context and energy around you. That’s why Bruce also requests as stage conductor of the E Street Band. They constantly watch you and evade your command, so there is always an element of surprise, even for the bandmates themselves.
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Bruce tells a current story of his life through songs old and new
Around the 80-minute mark on Road Diary
The goal of Bruce’s current tour, as portrayed in Road Diary, is to communicate a modern story to his audience using music new and old. Several of the new songs from Bruce’s 2020 album Letter to you it had never been performed live before, but it still fit the overarching layout of Bruce’s vision. Bruce routinely plays “Badlands,” a song he wrote in 1978, after “The Rising,” a song he wrote in 2002, before beginning his encore with 2020’s “Burning Train” and playing some of his biggest hits, “Born to Run”, “Days of Glory”, “Dancing in the Dark” and “Freezing on Tenth Avenue”. This arrangement is not intended to capture Bruce’s entire life, but rather his perspective now.
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Europe is Bruce and the E Street Band’s second home
Around the 70-minute mark in Road Diary
While Bruce sells out arenas to sellout crowds across the United States, he consistently sells out entire stadiums when the E Street Band goes to Europe. road diary reveals that Bruce and the band consider Europe an inviting second home, where fans are warmly passionate and expressive, perhaps more so than American citizens. They really enjoy playing in Barcelona, ​​Spain, and Milan, Italy, where they have historically had incredible fan support and performances. road diary features plenty of footage from the international legs of Bruce’s current world tour that captures that feeling.
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Bruce announced that he plans to go on tour again soon
At the end of the Road Diary
In case there was any concern, Bruce Springsteen makes it very clear at the end of Road Diary that he and The E Street Band have no plans to increase their tour breaks anytime soon. With the current tour expected to end in the summer of 2025, it could very well be that Bruce has another setlist in mind ready for 2026, depending on what he’s trying to communicate when the tour ends. Bruce may want to turn his focus to the studio to record what would be his 22nd studio album, but there was no mention of that in the road diary.
THE road diary the soundtrack features every live performance seen in the documentary, from “No Surrender” in Tampa to “I’ll See You In My Dreams” in Italy. New versions of other Springsteen classics like “Prove It All Night” and “Backstreets” are also available to stream on the Road Diary soundtrack album, which is available on major music streaming platforms like Apple Music and Spotify . With road diaryBruce Springsteen proves he is a true master of songwriting and storytelling, whose passion and poetry have lifted the spirits of millions of people.