Bruce Springsteen’s Epic Asbury Park Homecoming: A Night of Raw Emotion and Unforgettable Music

Madam Marie, the boardwalk fortune teller immortalized by Bruce Springsteen in his 1973 song “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” is no longer part of the once gritty, crime-ridden carnival town. Marie Castello passed away at 93 in 2008.

She fondly recalled meeting a 17-year-old Springsteen in the mid-1960s when he approached her for a reading. “All I got is 50 cents,” she remembered him saying. In response, she told him, “You don’t have to give me your 50 cents,” and encouraged him to follow his passion for music.

As I eagerly walked the weathered boardwalk on my way to the entrance of the “Sea. Hear. Now.” music festival on September 15, I was delighted to discover that Marie’s granddaughters were keeping her legacy alive, still telling fortunes inside the little concrete Temple of Knowledge and Psychic Booth she once ran.

Being back at the Jersey Shore, where so many of my childhood memories were made, felt like a homecoming. For Bruce Springsteen, who closed out the festival in front of 35,000 of us devoted fans, packed along the beach and boardwalk, the three-hour journey down memory lane was nothing short of epic. It was a special night for all of us—and no doubt for him too, just a week shy of his 75th birthday.

“Greetings, Asbury Park!” were Bruce’s first words to the crowd, and we couldn’t have been more ecstatic. Performing on a stage just 500 yards south of Madam Marie’s old storefront, Bruce wrapped up what is, for now, his final U.S. concert of this extensive tour. The tour, which began in 2023 after a six-year hiatus, faced interruptions due to Bruce’s treatment for peptic ulcer disease and the illness of several E Street Band members from COVID. Despite these challenges, he delivered a performance we’ll never forget.

Born just six miles away in Long Branch, Bruce Springsteen has always regarded Asbury Park as his spiritual home, a sentiment he cemented with his debut album. Over the past 25 years, he’s been widely recognized as the town’s global ambassador, playing a key role in its revival.

However, Bruce and the E Street Band hadn’t performed together in Asbury Park since 2010, and even then, it was a small, invite-only event. This long-awaited reunion was well overdue, and as a nod to the anticipation, many locals humorously sported t-shirts reading, “Bruce might show up.”

On this special night, Bruce took the stage in a vest, dress shirt, and tie, looking sharp for the occasion. Early in the show, he scrapped his usual setlist and delved deep into the E Street Band’s songbook, treating the crowd to some rare gems from his catalog.

The night kicked off with “Lonesome Day” from 2002’s *The Rising*, setting the tone for a special setlist. Fans were then treated to tour debuts of “Blinded by the Light” and “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?”—songs Bruce hadn’t played since 2017. He kept the surprises coming by adding “Growin’ Up,” making it three consecutive tracks from his *Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.* album. Before launching into “Blinded,” Bruce shared, “I wrote this a long time ago about 500 yards north of here on Loch Arbour beach. We haven’t played it in a long fuckin’ time. We got a lot of stuff we haven’t played in a long fuckin’ time for you tonight. Let’s see how we do.”

A few songs later, he introduced the rarely-performed “Thundercrack,” an eight-minute epic, by recalling, “I wrote this when I was 20 in a surfboard factory in Wanamassa,” a town just minutes away. It was only the third time he had performed it since 2013.

Throughout the night, Bruce seemed almost in awe, reflecting on the town’s transformation. “I used to drive down Kingsley, and the streets were empty, buildings abandoned, no one on Ocean Avenue, nobody anywhere,” he reminisced. “Then I fell into a dreamy sleep, and when I woke up, I said, ‘Where did all these fucking people come from?’”

Clearly enjoying himself, he had the crowd howling at the moon during “Spirit in the Night.” The humor continued when he introduced “Local Hero,” recounting a story from his hometown of Freehold. He spotted black velvet paintings in a five-and-dime store window—one of a Doberman Pinscher, another of Bruce Lee, and in the middle, one of himself. “I went home and wrote this song,” he said with a grin.