Bruce Springsteen will play Moncton on Aug. 26

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will play in Moncton on Sunday, Aug. 26, following up on last year's U2 concert.

The annoucement was made in Moncton on Friday.

Springsteen is launching the summer portion of the 2012 "Wrecking Ball" World Tour on Aug. 18 in Boston. The tour kicked off in Atlanta in March. The Moncton concert will be the third show of the newly added dates.

Jacques Dubé, the city manager in Moncton, said they began negotiations with the band last fall.

"This is the biggest rock tour in the world at the moment, and this will be of epic proportions, similar to shows like we had with the Rolling Stones and U2 last year. So this simply serves to cement and reinforce our position as one of the best concert venues on the entire planet," he said.

General admission tickets will be $115.

The concert is being produced by AEG Live and Donald K Donald.

Moncton has landed a number of high-profile acts in recent years and has been dubbed the concert hub of the Maritimes.

Mayor George Leblanc says Springsteen will keep the momentum going.

"He's only doing two dates in Canada. One is in Toronto, the other one's in Moncton and we have a reputation of being the smallest place with the biggest concert so I think it's fantastic."

Tickets for the show will go on sale Saturday, April 21.

The city expects up to 70,000 fans will attend.

Irish rockers U2 drew 75,000 fans to the Magnetic Hill outdoor concert site last July.

The mega concerts started in 2005, when the Rolling Stones performed at the outdoor concert venue.

Since that concert, Moncton has welcomed performers, such as Bon Jovi, AC/DC and the Eagles, at the site.

The mega concerts have become so popular that some city politicians have called for a better financial arrangement with the federal and provincial governments.

After the U2 concert in 2011, Coun. Daniel Bourgeois said it was not fair that the federal and provincial governments were collecting millions of dollars through taxes because of the Moncton concerts, while the city was making a much smaller profit.