Bruce Springsteen joins Zach Bryan for surprise performance in Philadelphia

Country singer Zach Bryan delighted fans by bringing out music legend Bruce Springsteen at his latest show, to rapturous applause.

The 28-year-old performed in front of tens of thousands at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on Wednesday (7 August), to perform hits from his latest album, The Great American Bar Scene.

Sharing the mic at times and strumming on their guitars, Springsteen and Bryan performed two songs together. The first was a duet of The Boss’s 1982 song “Atlantic City”, and the other was a performance of their collaboration “Sandpaper”.

And Springsteen wasn’t the only special guest as the “Pink Skies” singer invited The Lumineers to perform their joint song “Spotless”, and Shane Gillis, with Springsteen returning to close out the show with his song “Revival”.

Fans reacted saying the country star “knows how to put on a show”, and that the audience were “living [their] dream”.

The singer-songwriter, hailing from Oklahoma, started writing songs at the age of 14 and has since gone on to sell over 30 million records.

Meanwhile, Springsteen has been performing for 52 years, and returned to the stage earlier this year after health issues forced him to postpone his 2023 world tour. Several US Tour dates for The E Street Band were cancelled in September last year, as “The River” musician underwent treatment for peptic ulcer disease.

In March last year, Springsteen was honoured with the US National Medal of Arts presented by US president Joe Biden – the highest award given to artists and art patrons by the federal government. He became the first international songwriter to receive the UK’s prestigious Ivors Academy fellowship.

The Independent’s Mark Beaumont gave Springsteen’s Wembley performance a perfect five-star review, writing: “He might have penned his autobiography, had his Broadway show and flogged his catalogue for hundreds of millions. He may even have had to cancel shows on this two-year world tour due to peptic ulcer issues that threatened to rob him of his singing voice for good. All markers on the last few miles of the rock legend road.

“But as Springsteen – in waistcoat and tie but with sleeves rolled up for the evening’s real business – clocks in at a party-ready Wembley for another three-hour shift of blazing, hi-octane rock’n’roll, there’s no sign of the wear and tear dogging other such Sixties and Seventies greats.”