The Boss set to satisfy Winnipeg’s Hungry Heart Springsteen to play first gig in Winnipeg… finally By: Alan Small Posted: 7:00 PM CST Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023

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This article was published 14/02/2023 (936 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

These are words some in the city thought they would never read: Bruce Springsteen is coming to Winnipeg.

They finally rang true Tuesday morning when the New Jersey rock ‘n’ roll legend and the E Street Band announced a Nov. 10 concert date at the Canada Life Centre would be part of a fall leg of his 2023 tour.

It will be the first time Springsteen has performed in Winnipeg.

”There’s a whole lot of people who are happy this morning, and I’m one of them,” says Diane Geddes, one of several Springsteen fans from Winnipeg who have lobbied Springsteen’s management and the singer personally to perform in the city. “I wasn’t sure this would ever happen.”

Geddes, a retired accountant with Great-West Life who goes by the handle Springsteen2Wpg on Twitter, posted on Monday that she was hopeful that her Springsteen dreams would come true on Tuesday.

“Yesterday I had a pretty good feeling that this was going to be a good day. A good Valentine’s present for Winnipeg and all Springsteen fans, for sure,” she says.

Tuesday’s announcement is the culmination of more than 45 years of petitions, letter-writing campaigns and social-media pleas to the 73-year-old singer of hits such as Born to Run, Dancing in the Dark and The River to come to Winnipeg.

Geddes, who joined the cause in 2013 after seeing Springsteen six times in Ireland, made her own personal plea with the Boss himself in Seattle in 2016, when Springsteen held a book signing for his autobiography Born to Run.

“Over the years, we’ve done a number of things, to try to make it happen, and here we are, it’s finally happening,” says Geddes, whose selfie with Springsteen illustrates her Twitter profile.

The lobbying effort by Kevin Donnelly, senior vice-president for venues and entertainment for True North Sports and Entertainment, intensified last August when Springsteen and his team were in preparations for a 2023 tour, which began Feb. 1 in Tampa, Fla.

”It’s both a professional (and personal) goal, to try to land this show for Winnipeg. He’s been on my list for a long long time, since (Canada Life Centre) opened, frankly,” Donnelly says. “We’ve been waving our hands, saying, ‘We can handle it, Manitobans will support it and our building can provide all the amenities,’ for a long time.”

Donnelly has been trying to land The Boss since his early days as an independent concert promoter in the city.

“I’ve been a fan since I was a teenager. I’ve followed his whole career,” he says. “You’re always looking for the one that got away, and this is sort of the most obvious one for me.”

While many Springsteen fans in Winnipeg have travelled to Fargo and St. Paul, Minn., among other cities, to watch the Boss perform, Geddes says the show at Canada Life Centre will be extra-special, and not because it puts a checkmark on many Winnipeggers’ bucket lists.

“There’s also so many people in Winnipeg who have never had a chance to see Bruce because they can’t travel, it’s not an option for them to go to different places,” she says. “A lot of people in that arena will be people who have never seen Bruce live before.”

For Stu Reid, who launched two petitions to convince Springsteen to make a tour stop in Winnipeg and published a short-lived Springsteen fanzine after seeing the Boss in Toronto in 1980, learning about Springsteen’s appearance at Canada Life Centre is complicated.

The demand for Springsteen tickets, combined with Ticketmaster’s dynamic-pricing system, sent some ticket prices for previously announced concerts as high as US$5,500, levels that leave Reid uneasy.

”I’m super-conflicted over this current tour, to be honest,” says the host of the Twang Trust radio show on CKUW-FM. “I get why they’re as pricey as they are — they haven’t had a problem selling them at these insane prices — but at the same time, it’s cutting out a significant amount of his audience for decades and decades.

“When concert tickets reach four figures, it’s not rock ‘n’ roll anymore.”

“When concert tickets reach four figures, it’s not rock ‘n’ roll anymore.”–Stu Reid

Tickets go on sale Feb. 22 under Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan pre-registration system, and prices for standing spots on the floor begin at $69.50 plus fees, Donnelly says, adding that a certain number of “platinum” tickets will be priced much higher.

Despite his misgivings, Reid says he’s invested so much of his time and emotions not to see his idol perform in Winnipeg.

“At showtime, I’ll be in fanboy heaven,” said the 60-year-old. “It just will take me some time to get there.”

Alan.Small@freepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall