Bruce Springsteen concluded the Irish leg of his world tour on Sunday night, May 20 with a rousing, sold-out gig in Dublin's Croke Park.
Springsteen, who has roots in Co Kildare, played a touching nod to his late friend Shane MacGowan at the end of Sunday's concert with a rendition of "Rainy Night in Soho" by The Pogues.
The performance won the approval of MacGowan's widow Victoria Mary Clarke who called it "so beautiful."
Springsteen also performed the "Rainy Night in Soho" tribute to MacGowan last week during his concert at Nowlan Park in Co Kilkenny.
It was so beautiful ❤️ @ShaneMacGowan would be so delighted @springsteen is incredible and such a kind and warm hearted man ❤️ https://t.co/fzTSEhpkM3
— @victoriamary (@Victoriamary) May 19, 2024
Sunday's concert rounded off Springsteen's four-stop tour on the island of Ireland after stops in Cork, Kilkenny, and Belfast.
The 74-year-old New Jersey rocker performed a full range of classics on Sunday, delighting fans with performances of "Dancing in the Dark" and "Born in the USA" among many others during the three-hour performance.
"Ready or Not" also made its tour debut on Sunday.
Among the 80,000 concertgoers to see Springsteen's rockin' set were plenty of big-name celebrities, including Bono, Brad Pitt, Paul Rudd, Nick Jonas, and Benicio del Toro.
Keith Duffy, former member of the Irish boyband Boyzone, shared a photograph of him alongside Pitt at Sunday night's concert, describing the performance as "unforgettable."
"The Boss still knows how to rock a stadium!" Duffy wrote on Instagram.
Pitt was spotted at Sunday night's concert after reportedly accompanying Bono to the show. The U2 frontman, who made a cameo appearance at a Springsteen concert in Croke Park in 2016, inducted the Boss into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
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While Springsteen's three-hour concert in Dublin night wowed fans, the gig was not without criticism. Plenty of people took to social media to express their frustration with the queues to enter Croke Park on Sunday evening.
Concert promoter Peter Aiken apologized on Monday, telling the Irish Times: “The doors opened at 4 pm and almost immediately there were around 10,000 people in the venue but by 6 pm there were still only around 25,000 of the 82,000 there.
"I was looking at my phone and on social media and wondering where everyone was."
He continued: “It was simply a case that the scanners couldn’t pick up the tickets as fast as they normally do.
“It was bad, there’s no two ways about it. It was bad, and by the time Bruce Springsteen came on stage around 70,000 tickets had been scanned with the remainder finished within 20 minutes of the start of the show.
“It wasn’t good enough. There were people from all over the country coming to see him and while everyone was in within the first 20 minutes nobody would want to miss any of it.”
The Irish Examiner reported on Monday: "It is understood that all involved in staging the concert will attend a debriefing over the next 24-48 hours to identify the issues which contributed to the queueing issues."
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