Bruce Springsteen: Backstage and Backstreets will premiere Oct. 20
Bruce Springsteen offers a behind-the-scenes look at his latest tour and shares an update on his wife/bandmate Patti Scialfa’s cancer diagnosis in the new trailer for his upcoming ABC primetime special, premiering exclusively on Rolling Stone.
Bruce Springsteen: Backstage and Backstreets was filmed during the final few weeks of the musician’s latest world tour with the E Street band. Hosted by Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos, it features interviews with Springsteen and other members of the E Street Band, as well as footage from recent shows in Washington D.C. and the Stone Pony, the famed Asbury Park, New Jersey club where Springsteen got his start. (Springsteen played a surprise afterparty there last month ahead of his headlining set at the Sea.Hear.Now Festival.)
In the new trailer for the special, Springsteen talks about how he builds his marathon setlists, the “inner peace” music can offer people, and why, at 75, he still feels like “that 16-year-old kid who picked the guitar up.” He also opens up about Scialfa’s blood cancer diagnosis, which she received in 2018 but only just revealed in the upcoming documentary Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
“She’s doing good, we caught it early, which was important,” Springsteen says. “It’s a tough disease, it’s very fatiguing.”
Elsewhere in the special, Springsteen is set to discuss his own health issues, which caused him to postpone a handful of dates last year (those shows in Europe were just rescheduled for 2025). He’ll also dig into his own life, musical inspirations, and career challenges.
Bruce Springsteen: Backstage and Backstreets will premiere Oct. 20 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC, before arriving on Hulu and Disney+ the following day.