Springsteen's Super Bowl Press Conference

It's been over twenty years since Bruce Springsteen has been part of a press conference, but that streak ended Thursday as he participated in Super Bowl Media Day. Springsteen and the E-Street Band took questions from a standing room only crowd, talking about his career, current activities and their plans for the Super Bowl halftime performance.

On the current state of his career:

"Good times. You just have years where things happen, or years where it's quieter. But what's special for me right now is I really believe our band is going through sort of a golden age. We've made three of what I think are some of our best records in a row, which is really one of the reasons we're here. And the band, on the last tour, played the best it's ever played.

"We've been on the road awhile. We're some old soldiers. But the band is still really burning, and I really want people to know about the record. Good year, you know? It's been great."

On why he's playing the Super Bowl now after numerous previous offers:

"Initially, it was sort of a novelty and so it didn't quite feel right. But it was just like, this is the year. ... Bands of our generation, you can sort of be seen on a stage like this or, like, not seen. There's not a lot of middle places. It is a tremendous venue."

On what people should expect from the show:

"We want it to be a 12-minute party. The idea of the show is, you are going to the Meadowlands, you get lost on the way. You are watching your clock, `Damn, the show is starting right now.' You stop at a bar to get some directions, and the bar gets held up while you are there. So that takes another 45 minutes to get out of there.

"You come back and you miss your exit on the turnpike, and you are driving to get back around. And so you make it into the stadium 2 hours and 48 minutes into the show — that's what you are going to see: the last 12 minutes."

In a separate interview with the New York Times' Jon Pearles, Springsteen also addressed the recent Wal-Mart exclusive Greatest Hits set.

“We were in the middle of doing a lot of things, it kind of came down and, really, we didn’t vet it the way we usually do. We just dropped the ball on it.

...given its labor history, it was something that if we’d thought about it a little longer, we’d have done something different. It was a mistake. Our batting average is usually very good, but we missed that one. Fans will call you on that stuff, as it should be.”