Bruce Springsteen fans can dive into “The River” at Verizon Center on Friday. (Ilya S. SavenoK/Getty Images)
Bruce Springsteen wasn’t supposed to be on tour right now. But after revisiting his epic 1980 double LP “The River” for last month’s retrospective box set, “The Ties That Bind: The River Collection,” the Boss booked a string of arena gigs celebrating the 35-year-old album. Friday’s gig at Verizon Center, which sold out almost instantly, will be the E Street Band’s first appearance in Washington since a September 2012 date at Nationals Park. To get you ready for the concert, we’ve broken down the album, the box set and the tour by the numbers.
Verizon Center, 601 F St. NW; Fri., 7:30 p.m., sold out.
20 songs on “The River,” which will make up the bulk of Friday’s concert in Washington.
1 time Springsteen had previously performed “The River” in its entirety before this tour: Nov. 8, 2009, at Madison Square Garden.
A week earlier, on Nov. 2, he played his 1975 album, “Born to Run,” in full at Verizon Center.
104 songs Springsteen and the E Street Band demoed as they worked on “The River.” Before that, he recorded 95 demos on a tape recorder at home.
22 outtakes included in “The Ties That Bind: The River Collection.” Springsteen has been opening the shows with one of those songs, the “Born to Run”-esque “Meet Me in the City.” The box set also includes an hourlong documentary about the album that aired on HBO.
10 songs on “The Ties That Bind” — the album Springsteen intended to release in 1979 before he added a batch of songs and renamed it “The River.” The single-disc album, included in “The Ties That Bind: The River Collection,” features three songs — “Cindy,” “Be True” and “Loose Ends” — that didn’t make it onto “The River” and alternate mixes of such album tracks as “Stolen Car” and “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch).”
1 “River” song that Springsteen originally wrote for The Ramones: the emphatic, Baltimore-referencing “Hungry Heart.” The Ramones never recorded it.
5 concerts Springsteen held in the D.C. area on the original “River” tour: two sets of shows at the Capital Centre in Landover, Md., in November 1980 and August 1981.
6 non-“River” songs you’ll (probably) hear on Friday: “Born to Run,” “Dancing in the Dark,” “Thunder Road,” “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” “The Rising” and the Isley Brothers’ “Shout,” all of which the band played on the tour’s first two stops.
9 members of the E Street Band who are on this tour. For the 2014 “High Hopes” tour, the group swelled to 18 musicians.
2 covers the Boss has debuted this tour: “Rebel Rebel,” in honor of David Bowie, and “Take It Easy,” a tribute to the Eagles’ Glenn Frey.