Bruce Springsteen Hits Guitar Tech in Head, Knocks Him Down in Guitar Toss Gone Wrong

In a moment of showmanship gone awry, Bruce Springsteen, one of music's most celebrated performers, attempted to throw his guitar mid-set, only to hit his guitar tech square in the head. The Boss can be seen on a video taken by an attendee at Springsteen's Feb. 3 Atlanta concert winding up to throw a Fender Telecaster back about 20 to 25 feet to long-time tech Kevin Buell, as he has done countless times before. Despite the pair's familiarity with the move, it didn't quite work out as they expected. Instead, Springsteen launched the Telecaster towards an oncoming Buell, who misjudged the instrument's flight path and got hit. After that, he stumbled and fell on the stage, just to drummer Max Weinstein's left. Weinstein, Bittan, and the other members of the band looked on with concern when they noticed what had happened near the stage. 

Looking at Buell, Springsteen walked to the back of the stage to check on him, smiled, and walked back to his lead microphone, where he joked with the crowd: "One man down." Following the band's dramatic close to the song, Springsteen checked back on the retreated Buell backstage. Fortunately, Buell did not appear to be badly hurt, and the guitar suffered no severe damage. The roadie did not appear to have suffered any serious injuries, and he returned to work two days later in Orlando, Florida, for The Boss and the E Street Band's next concert. The Springsteen and the E Street Band 2023 Tour began on Feb. 1 in Tampa, Florida, and is scheduled to end on Dec. 8 in San Francisco. This is the first time Springsteen and the E Street Band have toured together since 2017. Some new dates were recently added to the North America and Europe tour. 

Fans expressed outrage over Springsteen's high ticket prices when those new shows were posted on his Instagram. The Boss addressed the band's sky-high ticket prices in November. Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing model allows for extreme inflation based on demand, which the 73-year-old New Jersey native used to sell tickets for the first time in his career. However, when tickets went on sale in July, fans were unhappy with the varying prices, some reaching $5,000. "What I do is a very simple thing. I tell my guys, "Go out and see what everybody else is doing. Let's charge a little less." That's generally the directions," he explained to Rolling Stone. They go out and set it up. For the past 49 years, or however long we've been playing, we've pretty much been out there under market value. I've enjoyed that. It's been great for the fans. This time I told them, 'Hey, we're 73 years old. The guys are there. I want to do what everybody else is doing, my peers.' So that's what happened. That's what they did," Springsteen explained.