Bruce Springsteen about to show Scotland who's boss

Springsteen, known to his millions of fans worldwide as the Boss, is playing at the Scottish national football stadium next Wednesday, June 1, with his backing group, the E Street Band, as part of a four-date British tour also taking in London’s Wembley Stadium on Sunday, June 5, and Coventry’s Ricoh Arena on Friday, June 3, as well as Manchester’s Etihad Stadium earlier this week.

The New Jersey-born 66-year-old is on the road to promote The Tie That Bind: The River Collection, a four-CD box set released in December.

A No 49 hit despite its £50-plus pricetag, it is, as its name suggests, an expanded version of his 1980 double album The River, a chart-topper in his native America and a No 2 here.

The box set’s 52 tracks include the single Hungry Heart, a No 36 hit in 1980 and No 28 when reissued in 1995, and more than 20 out-takes.

“We’ll play the record start to finish, and then we’ll do some of the special out-takes that are there, and we’ll play some favourites, and it should be a nice night,” said Springsteen.

“The River album was set up to play like a live show, so it works very well like that.

“That’s why we took all the time we did with it. It was our idea of new material that played like a show.

“We were taking a swing at trying to get some of that feeling and ambience onto the album.”

The Glasgow show is scheduled to start at 6.30pm, and tickets cost £55 to £125. For details, go to www.hampdenpark.co.uk, brucespringsteen.net or www.livenation.co.uk

It will be his third gig there following previous visits in July 2009 and June 2013.

The E Street Band consists these days of Patti Scialfa and Soozie Tyrell on acoustic guitars, Roy Bittan and Charles Giordano on keyboards, Nils Lofgren and Steven Van Zandt on electric guitars, Garry Tallent on bass, Max Weinberg on drums and Jake Clemons on saxophone.

The River was the first of 18 Springsteen albums to make the British top 10, the most recent being the 2014 chart-topper High Hopes.

High Hopes is one of 10 of his albums to make it to No 1, the others being 1984’s Born in the USA, 1987’s Tunnel of Love, 1992’s Human Touch, 2002’s The Rising, 2005’s Devils and Dust, 2007’s Magic, 2009’s Working on a Dream and 2012’s Wrecking Ball, plus 1995’s Greatest Hits.

He’s also notched up four top 10 singles here – Dancing in the Dark, a No 4 in 1984; double-A-sides of I’m on Fire and Born in the USA, a No 5, and My Hometown and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, a No 9, both in 1985; and Streets of Philadelphia, a No 2 in 1992.