Live music is back in New York City. The other week, Foo Fighters reopened Madison Square Garden — and, let me tell you, it was an emotional night. A couple days ago, the revival of Springsteen On Broadway signaled the reawakening of the Theater District, too. Small bands are playing rooftops all over Brooklyn now. All of this follows the announcement a couple weeks back from Gov. Cuomo, that New York had reached a vaccination threshold that marked “beating” COVID. There’s a whole lot more on the horizon in the coming months in terms of normal life returning. And, on our way, there’s also now going to be a massive Central Park concert to celebrate New York City coming out on the other side of the pandemic.

After rumors bubbled up for a couple weeks, Mayor de Blasio made it official today: Sometime this summer, there will be a weeklong celebration in Central Park, including a “homecoming” concert that will be headlined by Jennifer Hudson, Paul Simon, and Bruce Springsteen. (The New York Times also reports that the Boss is supposedly going to do a duet with Patti Smith, but no confirmation there.) Clive Davis is involved in booking the concert, and all those artists are from within his orbit over the decades.

This is going to be one of the greatest Central Park concerts in history,” de Blasio said during the press conference. “This is something for the ages.” There’s been some massive Central Park shows in the past, but, yeah, he’s probably not wrong. Bruce Springsteen is playing Central Park to mark the end of COVID in New York is one hell of a sentence to read after the last year.