Caryn Rose

On Wednesday night at a sold-out Nationals Park in this nation’s capital, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band had just reached the end of “Streets of Minneapolis,” the song the Boss wrote about the ICE murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the resistance put forth by the citizens of Minneapolis and St. Paul in reaction to “Operation Metro Surge” (it was no accident that this tour opened in the Twin Cities). As recorded, it’s a fine folk ballad.

For the last two months, Bruce Springsteen has been staging a nightly protest rally in arenas across America. “The Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour” is part revival meeting, part homecoming and also simply a fine evening of music. But it is absolutely a protest rally, whether people know it going in or not.

The Afghan Whigs walk out onto a stage set with that white backline (which Dulli credited to Lynyrd Skynyrd when I asked), purple ambient lights and strings of clear fairy lights (as they call them in the UK). The set opens with a deep rhythm, it’s like their version of “The Crunge,” except that it’s “Parked Outside,” which is the kind of song you open with only if you are very sure of your band and your audience.

Bob Dylan’s Instagram account used to feature the type of bland, standard content you’d expect from a legacy artist: “On this date” historical posts, tour announcements, box set advertisements. That was how things were until January 25, 2025, when the account uploaded a grainy video of Les Paul and Eddie Van Halen, taken from a 1988 special called “Les Paul & Friends.” But to know that, you’d have to know that, do a web search, or read the comments, because there was no caption on the post.

“THREE CHORDS AND BLESSED NOISE”
Horses 50th Anniversary
Chicago | New York City | Boston
November 2025
a tour chronicle
Caryn Rose

Bruce Springsteen has always tried to tell what he believed was the American story, and he is still telling it.

The opening of the new documentary about the loud, hilarious and irreverent ’90’s band the Lunachicks features the same kinds of devices anyone who’s ever watched a music documentary will be familiar with: a shot of an audience, with accompanying excited murmurings, and then, voices making fearless assertions: “Everything was a challenge that needed to be conquered,” “We’re gonna, like, melt people’s fu*king faces off because they expected us to suck,”

2026 is shaping up to be a year for incredible music books. Some of the best non-fiction books are projects where the writer is stepping up to fill a gap, to document the undocumented (or insufficiently chronicled), to tell a story that hasn’t been told adequately, to share a subject the writer is insanely passionate about.

Last night, Bob Dylan played the final of his three Michigan shows this tour. Veteran music journalist and Detroit resident Caryn Rose attended all three, and reports in on the final night.

If you’re a music fan, especially if you are young enough to remember the ’90’s, you know who Melissa Auf der Maur is, even if you don’t recognize her name. She’s the woman who stepped into the bass spot in Hole when Kristen Pfaff died literally moments after “Live Through This,”

If you have never seen the Tommy movie, this will not make any sense to you at all whatsoever. This is not any kind of review.

With the surprise release of brand new music from U2 — the EP, “Days of Ash” — it feels self-indulgent to be thrilled that all four members of the band, including Larry Mullen Jr. (who had been missing from U2’s Las Vegas Sphere residency in 2023-24), are in the studio, writing and recording new music.

“​​Highway of Diamonds – Black America Sings Bob Dylan” is the latest release in Ace Records’ “Black America Sings…” series. Ace is a small but mighty UK label that specializes in reissues and vintage catalog material, prioritizing physical releases that feature thoughtful annotations and liner notes.

On January 28th, 2026, Bruce Springsteen released “Streets of Minneapolis,” a protest song he’d written “in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis.” He continued, “It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.”

In the early 1980s, I was a college student, visiting my parents for the weekend, staying up late and taking advantage of their large color television, flipping through channels and looking for something worthwhile to watch.