Bruce Springsteen Takes the Belafonte Award, Then Plays ‘People Have the Power’ With Bono and Patti Smith

Award ceremonies often stop just short of electricity. This one didn’t. On June 13, at the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Bruce Springsteen accepted the Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award from Bono, then stepped to a microphone with his presenter and Patti Smith to perform “People Have the Power.” The song, an enduring call to action, made the night’s argument audible: recognition is not the same as retreat.

Bono’s speech opened in 1975, when he was fifteen. He described being “off to being very good at being no good” until Born to Run arrived that August, followed by Patti Smith’s Horses and Robert De Niro’s Taxi Driver. The thread was American creation — raw, literate, and unafraid. The friendship that began when Springsteen joined U2 for “Stand By Me” in 1987 deepened through reciprocal Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions before landing here, in front of a Tribeca Film Festival crowd.

“American music let freedom ring to people in Europe and Africa and Asia,” Bono said. “Bruce Springsteen is America.” He then traced a lineage: Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, Harry Belafonte — and the man who made poetry from the people’s voices. The speech cut further, arguing that Springsteen built cinema without ever starring in a film. Bono quoted the opening of “Nebraska” — “I saw her standing on her front lawn, just a twirlin’ her baton…” — and compared it to Terrence Malick. It was a precise reading of a songwriter who frames dust, longing, and consequence as establishing shots.

In a brief onstage conversation, Springsteen called America “a sacred argument,” a country born in disagreement and meant to keep having it daily. The line landed without ambiguity. Then the three shared “People Have the Power.” No speech could have sharpened the point further.