Bruce Springsteen to Perform at Grand Reopening of Asbury Lanes

By Michele Amabile Angermiller

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Bruce Springsteen is set to christen the grand reopening of the Asbury Lanes on June 18, the venue confirmed today.

Springsteen will join Portugal. the Man and the Tangiers Blues Band (featuring photographer Danny Clinch) for an event with proceeds benefiting the Boys and Girls Club of Monmouth County.

To obtain tickets, fans can enter an online lottery through the Asbury Lanes website. The lottery is only available to Asbury Park residents as part of the commitment to honor the local community. The lottery will accept entries until 8 a.m. ET on June 7; Asbury Park Now will also host a giveaway for a pair of tickets as well as a night at the newly-established boutique hotel, the Asbury.

Asbury Lanes — an old bowling alley which opened to the public over Memorial Day Weekend — recently was renovated as a music venue. The seaside town, celebrated in many Springsteen songs, is undergoing a resurgence, with the opening of the new Asbury Hotel and an influx of $300 million from iStar, which is updating and building new properties surrounding the beach and boardwalk areas.

“I think they’ve done a pretty good job with Asbury’s development,” Springsteen told Variety in his cover story last year. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when it came back to life in such a vibrant and strong fashion. It could easily have become a mini-mall or a wall of condos but it didn’t, and there’s still a place there; it’s still unique in its own right. That didn’t get erased, and that’s what really matters. It’s not gonna be the place that I grew up in — a little blue-collar resort, or the place that was the genesis of our band — but it’s a lovely, vibrant community right now, and I love going there in the summer now and seeing that beach jammed. I never thought I’d see it again.”

Springsteen was recently in Asbury Park inducting fellow E Street Band member Steve Van Zandt into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. He is set to appear this Sunday at the Tony Awards to celebrate his Special Tony Award recognizing the box-office success of “Springsteen on Broadway.”

Asbury Lanes is located at 209 4th Avenue, Asbury Park.