Bruce Springsteen [ tickets ] and the E Street Band will begin their first US tour in a decade with a series of shows at New Jersey's Continental Airlines Arena, it was confirmed Tuesday (5/18) by Columbia Records. Tickets are set to go on sale Saturday (5/22), with special limits and procedures in place to minimize scalping.

Officially, five dates were named for the run, though ticket demand is expected to mandate additional shows in what has traditionally been one of Springsteen's strongest ticket sales markets. Springsteen performed ten shows at the venue in 1984 near the beginning of the Born In The USA tour.

The European leg of Springsteen's world tour began April 9th in Barcelona, Spain, and will continue through June 27th, ending with a show in Oslo, Norway. Reviews of the band's European performances have been overhwelmingly positive, owing to both the energy of the reunited E Street Band and a decided focus on material from Springsteen's critically-acclaimed albums Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town and The River.

Tickets, priced at $37.50 and $67.50, will go on sale through Ticketmaster outlets in the tri-state area, through local charge-by-phone lines and online through the Ticketmaster Online web site. The venue box office will not open on Saturday. A four-ticket limit per show will be in place for all ticket buyers, except when purchasing tickets in the first 17 rows.

According to Tuesday's press statement, only phone customers will have access to tickets in the first 17 rows of the venue, and a limit of two tickets per buyer, not per show, will be imposed on those seat locations. Tickets will be held at the venue for pickup on the night of the show, and after presenting two forms of identification, the buyer and guest will be escorted into the venue to block parking lot sales of these seats.

As a crowd control measure for walk-up outlets, random numbered wristbands will be distributed on Thursday (5/20) at 5 p.m. On the morning of the ticket sale, a starting number will be announced at each ticket outlet one half hour before ticket sales begin.

Springsteen shows have long been a magnet for scalping activity, with tickets near the stage often quoted above $1,000 by ticket brokers during the Born In The USA tour of 1984-85. The current E Street Band outing will be the first major Springsteen tour undertaken since online auctions have come to the forefront as a tool to make it possible for tickets to be easily marketed for re-sale by regular consumers.

The US tour is initially planned to run through September, and features all members of the E Street Band that have toured with Springsteen since the mid-70's, including saxophonist Clarence Clemons, bassist Garry Tallent, drummer Max Weinberg, guitarists Nils Lofgren and Little Steven Van Zandt, keyboardists Roy Bittan and Danny Federici, and background singer (and Springsteen's wife) Patti Scialfa.