Mick Jagger says fans don’t want political lectures at concerts after Bruce Springsteen’s anti-Trump speeches

Mick Jagger, of all people, is the one who had to say it out loud. The guy who wrote "Sympathy for the Devil" and spent decades as rock's designated troublemaker is now the voice of reason telling Bruce Springsteen to knock it off. That's a strange place for 2024 to land us, but here we are.

Springsteen has turned his shows into extended Trump grievance sessions, and fans who paid a few hundred bucks a ticket are getting a civics lecture they didn't ask for. Jagger's point is simple and correct: people come to hear "Born to Run," not to be scolded about who they should have voted for. He's not even making a political argument. He's making a business argument, and an artistic one. Your job on that stage is to give people a great night, not to use your platform as a captive audience for whatever's bothering you.

This is the thing so many aging rock stars and actors never seem to learn. The fame doesn't make the opinion more valuable, it just makes the audience bigger and less able to leave. Springsteen has every right to say what he wants. Nobody's arguing otherwise. But there's a difference between having a right to speak and having the good sense to know your audience didn't buy a ticket to be lectured.

Jagger gets it because he's spent a lifetime studying what actually connects with people, and it isn't sanctimony. It's the music. Springsteen might want to ask himself why the Stones can still sell out stadiums without turning the encore into a campaign rally.