Bruce Springsteen [ tickets ] and The E Street Band, whose first tour in more than a decade resulted in one of the highest-grossing outings of 1999, have unveiled their initial touring plans for 2000. The itinerary includes stops in two dozen cities, mostly in markets passed over by the band last year.

A small number of additional shows in the U.S. and Canada will be announced at a later date, according to a press release issued today (1/25) by Springsteen's publicist. Tickets for nine of the tour's stops are set to go on sale Saturday (1/29). Onsales in additional cities have been scattered through February and March.

The tour will open Feb. 28 in State College, Penn., and will conclude with five nights at New York's Madison Square Garden. Last year, Springsteen grossed $19 million with 15 shows at the nearby Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J.

Press reports at the close of the tour's first leg indicated that the window of potential 2000 dates would be limited by the availability of E Street Band members Max Weinberg and Steve Van Zandt. Weinberg is the bandleader of NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien show and Van Zandt plays mobster Silvio Dante on HBO's runaway hit The Sopranos.

As currently planned, the tour itinerary allows Weinberg to be on the Late Show set during the important February and May sweeps periods, during which ratings successes determine advertising rates. Van Zandt has said in interviews that the tour plan would need to permit him to resume filming for The Sopranos in June.

As with Springsteen's 1999 tour, special limits and procedures will be implemented to minimize ticket scalping. According to concert promoters contacted by LiveDaily, the procedures will be similar to last year's, when ticket buyers were restricted to four tickets per show, except for tickets for the venue's first 17 rows.

Last year, only phone customers had access to tickets in the first 17 rows, with a limit of two tickets per buyer, not per show. Tickets were held at the venue for pickup on the night of the show, and after presenting two forms of identification, the buyer and guest were escorted into the venue, thus preventing the buyer from selling his ticket in the parking lot.

In 1999, Springsteen and band played 87 shows in 44 cities in North America and Europe. According to the concert trade magazine Pollstar, the 1999 Springsteen tour grossed $61.4 million in North America, where more than a million tickets were sold. According to the magazine, it was the 11th-highest-grossing North American tour in history, and the second-highest-grossing tour of 1999.