As expected, Bruce Springsteen has signed on to perform at the Celebrating America Presidential gala event set for Wednesday night (January 20th). The New York Times reported the special will cap the celebrations for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, with the Presidential Inaugural Committee adding that actors Eva Longoria and Kerry Washington “will also have roles to play in the program.”
In addition to remarks by President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Tom Hanks will serve as the show's host with performances by Jon Bon Jovi, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, and Demi Lovato, among others.
The prime-time special will be carried live starting at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and CNN, along with Amazon Prime.
Bruce Springsteen has long felt that the job he does is one that's existed through the ages — long before arenas, albums, and MTV: “If you look at the role of storytellers in communities, y'know, going back to the beginning of time, y'know, they played a sort of. . . you played a very functional role in assisting the community in making sense of its experience, sense of the world around them, charting parts of their lives, getting through parts of their lives. I was interested in sort of the eternal role of storyteller-songwriter and how I was going to perform that function best.”
