Bruce Springsteen Honored At Tribeca Festival, Rocks Out With Bono, Patti Smith In ‘People Have The Power’

Bruce Springsteen brought a taste of his Land of Hopes And Dreams Tour to downtown Manhattan Saturday, hitting the Tribeca Festival to accept the Harry Belafonte Voices For Social Justice Award that he dedicated to “all the citizens of Minneapolis and Los Angeles and Portland who stood against the federal invasion of their cities this year. So I’ll take this and keep this in their name.”

Bono presented the accolade, the two talked Springteen’s music and activism and joined Patti Smith and her longtime accompanist Tony Shanahan in People Have The Power to standing ovations, clapping and loud cheers. The Boss ended solo with a soulful Land Of Hopes And Dreams.

This Donald Trump critic, who blasted the president regularly on stops of his just concluded tour, exchanged compliments with another, Robert De Niro, the Tribeca Festival co-founder who didn’t pull punches introducing the event, slamming “Donald J. Trump and his feckless enablers.”

“This isn’t about reasonable disputes on policy,” De Niro said, “this is about the corruption and megalomania of one person. Bruce Springsteen puts a face to it, and he does it with the words of a poet.”

Springsteen returned, saying no one insults the president better than De Niro does. “What I love the most is Bob when he says, ‘Donald J. Trump’,” he added, drawing out the syllables.

Springsteen called his E Street band, “a band that was built for hard times, and built for times like these. And I put together a body of work that was built for hard times, and built for times like these. And I was always sort of singing for the moment and singing  towards the moment.”  

He wrote blue collar lyrics because “that was my family’s life, and I was interested for my own psychological health in sorting out their lives what were the forces at play in their lives.

“And if you do that long enough, you pray that you have a little impact on the culture. Because art has the chance to shape culture. Culture shapes politics. Culture and politics shape the nation.”

Bruce Springsteen, Bono, and Patti Smith perform ‘People Have The Power’ at Tribeca Festival Saturday pic.twitter.com/m6jm40fDBr

Bruce Springsteen tells Bono that his band and body of work were “built for hard times” like these – Tribeca Festival pic.twitter.com/YrYzSeRbdC