August 8, 2024
Last night, two weeks before he's scheduled to visit Philadelphia for his own two-show stand with the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen was in the City of Brotherly Love as a special surprise guest at Zach Bryan's final Philly show in 2024. Springsteen first appeared as a surprise guest at one of Bryan's concerts last March, in Brooklyn, NY, where they performed a live version of "Sandpaper," Bryan's then-unreleased song that he later issued as a studio version featuring Springsteen on his latest album just last month.
This time around, Bryan and Springsteen performed together one of Springsteen's compositions: "Atlantic City," live at the Philadelphia Eagles' football stadium (with Bryan sporting an Eagles shirt) in South Philly, no less, not very far from where mobster Phillip "The Chicken Man" Testa was killed back in 1981, inspiring the song's opening lines. They then performed "Sandpaper" together, as they did together in Brooklyn last March. Later in the show, also just as he did last March, Springsteen returned to the stage to join Bryan, his band, and their other special guests - who last night were The Lumineers and Shane Gillis - for Bryan's standard show-closer "Revival," delivered to the Philly audience in an epic lotsa-solo-spotlights version which also was accompanied by fireworks.
Fan-shot YouTube videos of "Atlantic City," "Sandpaper," and "Revival" are embedded below: