Bruce Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band Tour

2006 concert tour by Bruce Springsteen and the Sessions Band

The Bruce Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band Tour, afterward sometimes referred to simply as the Sessions Band Tour, was a 2006 concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and the Sessions Band playing what was billed as "An all new evening of gospel, folk, and blues", otherwise seen as a form of big band folk music. The tour was an outgrowth of the approach taken on Springsteen's We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions album, which featured folk music songs written or made popular by activist folk musician Pete Seeger, but taken to an even greater extent.

The tour began on April 20, 2006, with the first of four rehearsal shows at Asbury Park Convention Hall as well as a promotional appearance there on ABC's Good Morning America. Then came a successful performance before a non Springsteen crowd at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 30, in a city still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina; Springsteen voiced discontent over government handling of the aftermath of Katrina, much to the satisfaction of the handkerchief waving audience. The tour's first proper leg then began in May with 10 regular concerts and one special television concert in Western Europe; the first was at the Point Depot in Dublin on May 5. A return to the United States for the second leg saw 18 concerts from late May to late June, ending at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey, on June 25. Springsteen said in various languages during the latter stages of the European leg of the tour, "See you in the fall!" Accordingly, the tour's third leg consisted of 27 shows in Europe again, during October and November. This leg was sometimes dubbed The American Land Tour 2006, after a new Springsteen song that was being played as well as the We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions – American Land Edition reissue of the album. It began on October 1 at the PalaMalaguti in Bologna, Italy, and concluded on November 21, 2006, at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. No further American shows took place.

Material from the Seeger Sessions album dominated the set list of the 2½ hour shows. Especially in the numbers played first, such as "John Henry" and "O Mary Don't You Weep", the typically 18 strong band put up a huge sound, with a four acoustic guitar led rhythm section creating a strong beat, punctuated by plenty of violin, banjo, and trumpet solos as well as multiple false endings. Audience participation was encouraged for the later "My Oklahoma Home" ("Blown away!") On the third, European leg, the enormous reception the band had received earlier in the year was not lost in the larger shows, and with Springsteen's arrangements of over ten of his original works into folk like performances to add to the ever expanding repertoire of Seeger influenced songs. "The Seeger Sessions Band [was] no longer the ragtag collection of fine individual players they were some months ago, but a tight unit here toward the end of the tour — a band", Backstreets. com reported. The shows were seen by many to be among Springsteen's absolute best. Late in the American leg, he had debuted the Irish jig styled "American Land", which now closed many of the European shows. On November 11 at Wembley Arena, the band debuted a new Springsteen composition titled "A Long Walk Home", which was a ballad about the current state of American politics, which a special comments about the just completed mid term elections having restored "some semblance of sanity" to the country.

Both the album and the tour proved more popular in Europe than in the U. S. The first sign of domestic weakness came when the local Asbury Park rehearsal shows, placed in the very heart of Springsteen fandom, were not full; in the past, these had been extremely difficult tickets to get. European shows, on the other hand, did very well, with for example shows in London, Manchester, and Amsterdam all selling out in ten minutes or less. Some of Springsteen's most devoted fans were now overseas, and Milan and Barcelona provided especially fervent crowds, some of whom were mass singing the new album's songs even before the show started. The Indianapolis venue saw a "yawning green lawn (empty as it was)." A Milwaukee area venue, already cut down in size, was only about half full. For a show outside Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported that "Springsteen faced a sea of empty seats  The 11,000 seat pavilion was barely half full, and the 17,000 capacity lawn was barren." Yet despite attendance woes, the U. S. shows received almost universal praise from critics and concert goers. While they were without the E Street Band and did not include any of Springsteen's biggest hits such as "Born to Run", fans were consistently kept on their feet singing along. David Hinckley of the New York Daily News wrote of the tour, "In Saratoga Monday night, Springsteen kept a full house on its feet pretty much the whole show. No one left wishing for 'Born to Run'." Joan Anderman of The Boston Globe said that the "homespun symphony of accordions and fiddles, pedal steel guitars, and joyful voices was filled with the irrepressible spirit that's the very essence of folk music." Dan Barry of The New York Times, writing as an old folk music follower, described how "music exploded from the stage: rock and bluegrass, jig and reel, spiritual and swing, honky tonk and acoustic blues  he raised his audience up with old songs and spirituals that he had infused with rocking urgency, then toyed with so that brass and guitar could harmonize, an accordionist could jam with the Boss, and a tuba player could know rock concert adulation." The Chicago Tribune review quoted above went on to say, "The no show Springsteen faithful missed a good one." Newsday said the show had both high points and stumbles. Springsteen appeared quite grateful, and thanked the fans for "taking a risk by coming out to see us." He closed out the last American show with a "song that explains what we're trying to do  not what we're trying to do – what we're doing", the 19th century circus ode and lament, "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze". And, when tickets for third leg shows back in Europe went on sale in July, some shows such as those in Dublin sold out within minutes, and others sold out with unprecedented rapidity for music of this genre, usually unseen in arena formats, thus marking again a stark contrast in the tour's reception on the two sides of the Atlantic. A year later, Springsteen rated the whole experience highly, saying that the Sessions Band were "a tremendous discovery, and just an amazing group of musicians", and saying that he looked forward to working with them again. "American Land" would retain prominence as the accordion dominated show closing jig in Springsteen's subsequent E Street Band Magic Tour.