Bruce Springsteen’s Berlin concert echoes with history and a stark warning

BERLIN (AP) — Veteran rock star Bruce Springsteen, a high-profile critic of President Donald Trump, slammed the U.S. administration as “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous” during a concert Wednesday in Berlin.

He was addressing tens of thousands of fans at a stadium built for the 1936 Olympic Games that still bears the scars of World War II and contains relics from the country’s dark Nazi past.

“Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices, stand with us against authoritarianism, and let freedom reign,” he said.

Springsteen has made increasingly pointed and contentious public statements in recent concerts. He peppered Wednesday’s performance with mentions of the American democracy’s system of checks and balances designed to ward against authoritarianism.

His short speeches — referencing recent headlines about immigration raids, the freezing of federal funds for universities and measles outbreaks — came between songs that were also captioned in German on large screens beside the stage. The set was flanked by an American flag on one side and a German flag on the other.

Still, the Boss remained hopeful: “The America that I’ve sung to you about for the past 50 years of my life is real. And regardless of its many faults, it’s a great country with great people. And we will survive this moment.”

But last month in Manchester, he denounced Trump’s politics during a concert, calling him an “unfit president” leading a “rogue government” of people who have “no concern or idea for what it means to be deeply American.”

Springsteen is no stranger to Berlin. In July 1988, he became one of the first Western musicians to perform in East Germany, performing to a roaring crowd of 160,000 East Germans yearning for American rock ’n’ roll and the freedom it represented to the youth living under the crumbling communist regime.

“I’m not here for or against any government. I’ve come to play rock ’n’ roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down,” Springsteen said in German at the time, before launching into a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom.”

An Associated Press news story from that period says “fireworks streaked through the sky” and hundreds of people in the audience waved handmade American flags as they sang along to “Born in the USA.”

The Berlin Wall fell the following year, and some experts credit the concert for its part in fueling the protest movement that brought the end of the Communist government.

Almost four decades later, Springsteen issued a stark warning: “The America that I love, the America that I’ve sung to you about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.”

The rocker closed Wednesday’s three-hour show with “Chimes of Freedom.”