Bruce Springsteen confirms U.S. tour dates for ‘Wrecking Ball’ 

Bruce Springsteen this week announced not only details of his next album, but also dates for the first U.S. leg of his 2012 tour with the E Street Band.

Taking its name Springsteen’s new album, the U.S. Wrecking Ball Tour presently features 19 dates in 16 markets. The whole thing launches March 18 at Philips Arena in Atlanta, GA, and wraps with a May 2 event at Prudential Center in Newark, NJ.

Among the planned stops are multiple-night stands in and around Springsteen’s native New Jersey. Double-night bookings include March 28-29 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA, and April 3-4 at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, NJ.

Another two dates are inked for April 6 and 9 at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY. Those concerts are booked around pre-existing home games for the NHL’s New York Rangers (April 7) and the NBA’s New York Knicks (April 8).

Initial onsales for the tour begin January 27-28, with a full listing of onsales available on Springsteen’s official Web site. Of the limited event listings already online at Ticketmaster.com, ticket face values are set at $35 on the low end and $98 on the high end.

Of the currently available ticket listings, a few note that select areas of seating will use Ticketmaster’s restrictive paperless ticketing. The process requires ticket holders to present the credit card used in their ticket purchase — as well as a matching government-issued photo ID — in order to gain entry at the venue’s doors.

Springsteen also used paperless ticketing at select venues in 2009, during his Working on a Dream Tour. As a result, Springsteen’s name has become intertwined in several state talks about paperless ticketing legislation.

Most recently, Connecticut lobbyists insinuated that artists like Springsteen might avoid state venues if legislation were passed against paperless ticketing. The statements were never substantiated as fact, but ultimately Connecticut legislators withdrew the proposed bill to regulate paperless ticketing.

Springsteen’s last U.S. tour was also at the center of controversy over Ticketmaster’s handling of public ticket onsales. During those sales, some consumers unknowingly were redirected to buy tickets at inflated prices from secondary subsidiary TicketsNow once tickets had sold out on Ticketmaster’s site.

The situation led to a war of words between Ticketmaster and Springsteen’s camp. Meanwhile, fans affected by the redirects took matters into their own hands and filed a class action suit against Ticketmaster for its practices, which was settled for $16.5 million in October 2011.

Ticketmaster has since relaunched its resale linking initiative with TicketsNow as an opt-in program. While it is yet unclear whether Springsteen has opted in to the TicketsNow program, it seems an unlikely choice given the musician’s past troubles with the interlinking of tickets.

On the road with Springsteen this year will be E Street members Roy Bittan, Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa, Garry Tallent, Stevie Van Zandt and Max Weinberg. Other backing musicians include Soozie Tyrell and Charlie Giordano.

Following the initial U.S. tour leg, the group will head overseas for a previously announced European tour leg.

Springsteen is releasing his first album in three years this spring. The record, “Wrecking Ball,” drops March 6 ahead of the world tour’s launch.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band itinerary:
(Dates are subject to change.)