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Springsteen vs. London Curfew: Steven Van Zandt Apologizes For Anti-Cop Comments

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(Jim Dyson/Getty Images)

(Jim Dyson/Getty Images)

As previously reported, London police pulled the plug on rock legends Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney during the Hard Rock Calling Festival at London’s Hyde Park last week because of curfew violations.

The Boss took a comical approach to revenge during his concert in Dublin last week, the first following the curfew incident in London. At one point during the show, a man dressed as an English policeman came on stage and pulled the plug from a prop generator, which was plugged back in by E Street Band guitarist and Springsteen sidekick Steven Van Zandt, BBC reports. Additionally, Springsteen started off with two cheeky covers: The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” (a song that was cut off in London) and The Clash’s “I Fought The Law.”

However, Van Zandt – aka Little Steven – took to his Twitter account to express his outrage with London police, whom he said should have been more worried about catching criminals instead of disrupting “80,000 people having a good time.”

Now Van Zandt is changing his tune, apologizing for his comments against English police in a new essay published by The Huffington Post on Saturday (July 21). In the apologetic piece, Little Steven said he was misinformed about who pulled the plug and did not want his statements to be “misinterpreted as a criticism of the police themselves.”

“The point I was trying to make, clumsily as the attempt may have been, is we all need to keep a good eye on rules and regulations, enacted with the best of intentions, being carried out rigidly and mindlessly regardless of the circumstance,” he wrote.

He continued: “Now I’m sure the Council has its members and neighbors’ best interests at heart. But were those regulations meant to be immutable? This is how toxic bureaucracy is born. With the best intentions, laws are put in place, entered into the ‘system’ where they live, unquestioned and unchanging, forever.”

Steven said he felt there could have been better communication, and the Westminster Council could’ve taken festival attendees into consideration.

“And by the way, at an event that would have been finished by 11:00 on a Saturday night?” he wrote. “I think even the Council would agree, those numbers are worthy of consideration, and at the very least, a conversation.”

- Sarah Scroggins, WCBS-FM; Jillian Mapes, CBS Local

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