Bruce Springsteen, E Street Band launch U.S. tour April 8

Having recently completed a first-ever tour of South Africa along with dates in Australia and New Zealand, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band have come home. The group will get back out on the road in the U.S. with a run of shows in the South, Midwest and Northeast beginning April 8 in Cincinnati.

The band’s 15 shows will take it through 10 states, including a May 3 stop at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Other tour stops include Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida and Connecticut. No stops in California have been announced.

Springsteen hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart last month with his latest release, “High Hopes,” which entered the chart in the top spot after its first week in stores and has sold nearly 140,000 in three weeks.

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Reviews have been mixed, skewing positive, and the album has received a 66 (out of a possible 100) on the Metacritic.com review aggregate website based on more than 40 reviews.

Rolling Stone awarded it 4 1/2 stars (out of 5), calling it “a portrait of the artist at the top of his 21st century game,” while L.A. Times Pop Music Critic Randall Roberts noted that “his genius is fallible, and his latest album … suggests a past threatening to overtake him.”

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