Bruce Springsteen Says Diaphragm Pain from Peptic Ulcer Disease Was ‘Killing Me’: ‘I Couldn’t Sing’

Bruce Springsteen gets candid about the physical toll his peptic ulcer took on him.

The singer, 74, told SiriusXM’s E Street Radio host Jim Rotolo on Thursday that he felt “really good” about being back on the road with the E Street Band after taking time off to focus on his health. (The “Born in the USA” singer announced in late September that he is in the middle of treatment and is postponing the rest of his 2023 tour as a result.)

“I mean, first of all, Phoenix is ​​a great city for us, and the crowd was below the Richter, off the Richter scale. We had a beautiful crowd, and the band just played great, you know, and I thought they might be tired, maybe you’re a little tired, maybe you’re a little rusty No. You know, the guys were just fantastic from [the] the first song, and I felt great, and the whole band felt great,” Springsteen said of his show at the Footprint Center in Phoenix on Tuesday.

Bruce Springsteen performs in Phoenix, Arizona on March 19, 2024.

John Medina/Getty

Bruce Springsteen is postponing his remaining 2023 tour dates as he recovers from a peptic ulcer

Although the rocker performed a set of 29 songs, Rotolu admitted that he was wondering if he would be able to do it because his diaphragm hurts “a lot” and he has not been able to sing for months.

“Once I started singing, you know, you can practice singing, but your voice isn’t the same in rehearsals. You don’t have that edge of adrenaline that really pushes it to a better place and the thing when I had a stomach problem, one of the big problems was that I couldn’t sing “, he explained.

Bruce Springsteen.

Mike Coppola/Getty

Bruce Springsteen Joins John Mellencamp for Surprise Performance of ‘Pink Houses’: ‘My Good Friend’

“You sing with a diaphragm. You know, my diaphragm hurt so much that when I tried to sing it was killing me, you know? So I literally couldn’t sing at all, you know, and that went on for two or three months along with just a myriad of other painful problems ,” Springsteen continued.

The musician owes his recovery to his “excellent” doctors.

They corrected me and I can do nothing but thank them all, he said. Springsteen noted that fans can expect him to “move around” more during his upcoming shows.

Jake Clemons and Bruce Springsteen perform on stage in Phoenix, Arizona on March 19, 2024.

John Medina/Getty

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

“I think we’re approaching it like it’s a new tour,” he explained. “There’s going to be some stuff from last year’s tour that’s going to stick around, some of my core themes of mortality and life and that stuff, you know, I’m going to carry on, but I think I’m going to be moving around the second part of the set a lot more, so it’s going to be a lot broader song selection, so we’re looking at it as, you know, it’s part of the old tour, but we’re looking at it as a new tour.”

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education