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Inside Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s Return to the Stage: The 6 Best Moments From Phoenix

After a six-month break, half of it unintentional, Springsteen opened the new leg of his tour in Arizona, where he showed he was in peak form.

By Melinda Newman

Melinda Newman

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Bruce is back. 

If there was any doubt that Bruce Springsteen hadn’t fully recovered from the peptic ulcer disease that caused him to postpone 29 dates on his world tour with the E Street Band last fall, he dispensed of that notion within minutes of taking the stage Tuesday (March 19) at Phoenix’s Footprint Center for the first time in six months.

The Boss, clad in a red and black checkered shirt with rolled-up sleeves and black jeans, was in top form from show opener “Lonesome Day” and fully had his sea legs back by third song, “No Surrender,” when he gave his first trademark shout out, “C’mon, Steve!” beckoning for his brother-in-music for over half a century, Steven Van Zandt, to join him on the mic.  

For more than 50 years, Springsteen’s live shows have been about two things above and beyond the superb musical performance: Feeling alive and trusting in the communion between the Boss and his fans. 

For longtime fans such as myself (I’ve seen more than 50 shows over more than 30 years), a Springsteen concert is one of the places where we feel most vibrant. There’s the unbridled joy of hearing the music that has given meaning and voice to our life experiences in the company of likeminded souls. For many of us, Springsteen has been the best traveling companion through life imaginable. Part of that also comes from the trusting communion at any show: there’s the implicit understanding that Springsteen is going to take care of us and entertain us during that concert the best way he can—by pouring everything he has into the performance— and, in return, we’re going to send that energy back to the stage by being as present as we can be. 

That’s why when he postponed nearly 30 shows after his Sept. 3 dates at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. because of his illness, fans feared that this could be the end. Even though he has long prided himself on being in superhuman physical condition (and proved he still is in Phoenix by ripping his shirt open to show his toned chest), at 74, it’s clear that the road will end eventually for Springsteen. But as Tuesday night showed, he’s returned at the top of his game and the end feels far into the future if he wants it to be (though for longtime fans, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that on this tour Springsteen does not end the shows with his former trademark line, “We’ll be seein’ you.”)

When this world tour started in February 2023, Springsteen was working a theme built around “Last Man Standing,” an emotional song featured on his underrated 2020 album,  Letter to You . Like on the earlier shows on the tour, Springsteen addressed the Phoenix audience (in this case, for the first time all night more than an hour in), giving a beautiful speech about playing in his first band, The Castiles, when he was 15 in the mid-‘60s, and how more than 50 years later, he stood by the bedside of his friend and bandmate George Theiss, as he lay dying, leaving Springsteen the last member of the band alive. It’s a reflection on mortality, but also on resilience and joy. Though he’s never spoken of death and the gift it brings the living from stage so eloquently before, it’s understood by fans. For example, after my mother died, I consoled myself by going to as many shows as I could on the consecutive  Magic  and  Working on a Dream  tours because standing in the pit of a Springsteen show was where I felt most alive. 

Unlike the setlists from earlier shows that seemed slightly more reflective and wide-ranging, Tuesday’s show was a high-octane freight train of a rock show. The message is that life is to be savored and, more than anything, celebrated and met head on at full-speed. Springsteen and the band barreled through 29 songs, most of them full-on rockers, in 2 hours and 45 minutes. The show felt nothing if not efficient. There was no fat. The only break between songs was the few seconds it took for Springsteen to change guitars and, other than a few asides, he only addressed the audience for the speech before “Last Man Standing” and after “Backstreets.” He never brought up his illness until right before the closing song when he apologized to anyone inconvenienced by the Phoenix date shifting from Nov. 30 to March 19, adding, “I had a mother**ker of a bellyache.”

Below are six of the highlights from the Phoenix show, which had former N.J. governor Chris Christie and rocker Alice Cooper in attendance, in an evening filled with nothing but stellar moments . (Christie, by the way, said it was his 153rd Springsteen show!)

One-Two Punch of “Last Man Standing” and “Backstreets”

As mentioned above, the emotional centerpiece of the evening was when Springsteen talked about George Theiss and the revelation that he was now the last man from the band still alive and was, therefore, the keeper of the flame. “[Death] brings with it a certain clarity of thought. Death’s final and lasting gift to us the living is we get an expanded vision of the life you can live yourself,” he said, introducing “Last Man Standing.” He performed the song under a solo spotlight, otherwise bathed in darkness—even the lights lining the lip of the stage were turned off. From there the band perfectly segued into a haunting, majestic version of “Backstreets,” which looks back at Springsteen and his friend Terry, who swore they’d live forever. It was the perfect twosome—the folly and eternal optimism of youth paired with the reality of death. Most touching, at the end of the twofer, Springsteen enumerated the items he’d kept of Thiess’s, including his box of 45s, his books and an old guitar, before saying “the rest of you, I’ll carry right here,” he vowed, patting his hand over his heart. 

Springsteen’s Wall of Sound

Accompanied by 17 musicians, Springsteen is basically mayor of a small city on stage. As always, the production is minimal, but that’s in part because there’s no room on the stage for anything but the musicians and their instruments. When everyone is playing, such as on songs like “Wrecking Ball” or “Glory Days,” between the boldness of the horn section and the beauty of the backing vocalists and the craftmanship of the E Street Band, it felt like a wall of sound was crashing from the stage over the audience. It’s a powerful sound, unmatched by any other outfit on the road. It’s been 12 years since Jake Clemons joined the band, replacing his legendary uncle Clarence on saxophone. His dynamic with Springsteen is obviously different, but he’s grown into an endearing, excellent foil and the warmth between the two is palpable. On a side note, there are so many of them that after the main set, they gathered for bows, but instead of departing the stage and coming back for their encore, they all just returned to their stage spots because nobody has time for that many people to leave and come back again.

The Power of 'Ghosts'

Springsteen’s last album of original material, Letter to You , got lost in the pandemic and the band’s postponed tour that would have supported it, if not for the shutdown. It’s chockful of songs about facing your past and saluting those who have gone ahead, while finding ways to move forward through grief, fear and the grind of aging. “Ghosts,” an uplifting song about cherishing being alive while honoring those who are gone felt criminally neglected. It’s a potent rocker that Springsteen and his band brought home with a power (especially from the Mighty Max Weinberg on drums) and a grace in Phoenix that easily conjured up the spirits of not only Theiss, but Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici. 

Springsteen’s Falsetto

After a few wobbles on the opening two songs, Springsteen’s voice locked in and sounded strong and boisterous throughout the whole concert, but the first time he went into his falsetto on “Two Hearts,” the crowd went crazy. He used it sparingly, but every time he brought it out, including on “Spirit in the Night,” “Don’t Play That Song” and  “Mary’s Place,” the audience couldn’t get enough.

The Outro to “She’s the One”

Honestly, does Springsteen (or anyone) have a more joyous piece of music than the last 90 seconds or so of “She’s the One?” It soars on record, but live, it causes the roof to levitate. In Phoenix, Max Weinberg was pounding out the Bo Diddley beat, while Springsteen wailed on harmonica, and it just felt like a rocket ship catapulting into space. 

"Twist & Shout"

One of the things that Springsteen fans love is when he calls an audible– meaning he veers from the setlist and turns his back to the audience, confers with the band and adds something to the set the wasn’t originally slated to be played. The current tour, by design, hasn’t allowed for much spontaneity, so it was a particular delight when during the six-song encore, Springsteen made it seven songs. He grabbed a sign from an 18-year-old kid in the audience that read it was their first Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band show ever and would the band play “Twist & Shout?” (Next time, maybe they suggest a Springsteen song?) Springsteen grabbed the sign and held it up to his bandmates to make sure they knew what was coming next. The Isley Brothers’ classic is a song they’ve played for decades and they ripped into it with gusto and showed they really are at heart the world’s best bar band.

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Watch Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Kick Off Their 2024 World Tour

By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

Six months after Bruce Springsteen suspended his world tour so he could recover from a painful peptic ulcer, he was back onstage with the E Street Band Tuesday night in Phoenix, for the first gig of the year. And while the setlist was largely the same as the one he delivered nightly in 2023, he did make some minor alterations, and create space for further additions as the year progresses.

The majority of last year’s concerts kicked off with “No Surrender,” but it loosened up during the stadium portion at the very end when he started breaking out “Lonesome Day” and “Night” prior to it. He stuck with that trio of songs at the top of the Phoenix show, and also performed “Darlington County” and “Darkness on the Edge of Town” early in the night. Both songs were only played on selection occasions last year.

The second half of the show, kicking off with the story of his late Castiles bandmate George Theiss and the emotionally-charged double shot of “Last Man Standing” and “Backstreets,” was largely identical to previous sets. But he did bust out “Twist and Shout” at the end of the first encore in response to a sign from an 18-year-old fan that was seeing him for the first time.

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If the past is any precedent, the setlist should continue to evolve in the coming months. It may never reach the point Springsteen hit in the 2010s where the show changed radically from night to night, and he took random sign requests throughout the evening, but it’s impossible to say for sure. We have a long way to go until closing night in Vancouver.

Here is the complete Phoenix setlist: “Lonesome Day” “Night” “No Surrender” “Two Hearts” “Darlington County” “Ghosts” “Prove It All Night” “Darkness on the Edge of Town” “Letter to You” “The Promised Land” “Spirit in the Night” “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)” “Nightshift” “Mary’s Place” “Last Man Standing” “Backstreets” “Because the Night” “She’s the One” “Wrecking Ball” “The Rising” “Badlands” “Thunder Road” Encore “Born To Run” “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” “Glory Days” “Dancing in the Dark” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” “Twist and Shout” Encore “I’ll See You in My Dreams”

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Backstreets: A ‘prime example of the majestic-ness’ of Springsteen

Photo by Tom Hill, Getty Images

It begins with a minute-long instrumental intro, dominated by Roy Bittan's work on piano and organ. And then, Bruce Springsteen's voice comes in, raw, impassioned singing about the start of a friendship tinged with desperation: "One soft infested summer, me and Terry became friends, trying in vain to breathe the fire, we was born in."

Legendary rock critic Greil Marcus, reviewing the "Born to Run" album for Rolling Stone in 1975, quoted the first few lines of "Backstreets" before describing it as "a song that begins with music so stately, so heartbreaking, that it might be the prelude to a rock & roll version of 'The Iliad.' "

The doomed friendship between the youthful singer and Terry, and the raw passion of Springsteen's singing, gives "Backstreets" its emotional heft. In 2013, Rolling Stone named the song No. 6 in a list of Springsteen's 100 greatest compositions. 

In the 2005 documentary "Wings for Wheels," released for the 30th anniversary of "Born to Run," Springsteen describes the album as "a record about friendship. When you look at the cover, that's what you see."

Then, playing the piano intro to "Backstreets," Springsteen continues, "Backstreets, the entire song is about, you know ..." and then he softly sings, " Slow dancing in the dark, on the beach at Stockton's Wing, Where desperate lovers park - We sat with the last of the Duke Street Kings, Huddled in our cars, waiting for the bells that ring, In the deep heart of the night, we let loose of everything, to go, running on the backstreets ... We swore forever friends — on the backstreets until the end."

"That's the whole deal," Springsteen says.

Tony Pallagrosi,  event promoter who owns Asbury Park-based UMT Concerts , and the  executive director of the Light of Day Foundation , had a chance to observe Springsteen and the E Street Band performing the song up close. Pallagrosi, who played trumpet with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, went on the road with Springsteen and the E Street Band in 1977, part of the original Miami Horns.

"We would be offstage, and I would be in the wings, and I would watch him every time he played that song, and there was something deep and dark, someplace that he would go, whenever he played that song," Pallagrosi remembered. "He kind of drew the climax of the song out live, and the band would just vamp, and he would kind of repeat the same lyrics over and over again, and the rhythm section would slowly build, and his head would go back.

"And talking about it, I get chills. I knew he was not there. He was somewhere else. It was so powerful and so obvious to me," Pallagrosi added. "I probably was moved more by those performances of that particular song than I have ever been moved by any performance of any other song."

After a brief discussion about other memorable performances he has witnessed, Pallagrosi continued about "Backstreets."   

"The depth, the colors, the power, the majesty, the unknown that that song represented, and I think the heartache or the heartbreak was so brilliantly and exquisitely portrayed that I can't compare anything quite the same way to that experience," he said.

The depth, the colors, the power, the majesty, the unknown that that song represented , and I think the heartache or the heartbreak was so brilliantly and exquisitely portrayed that I can’t compare anything quite the same way to that experience.

In his 2016 autobiography, "Born to Run," Springsteen described "Backstreets" as a song about “broken friendships.” 

“When the breakdown hit at midnight

There was nothing left to say

But I hated him

And I hated you when you went away,” Springsteen wails, after losing his “forever friend,” Terry. 

Disc jockey Tom Cunningham, host of 107.1 The Boss' "Springsteen on Sunday," said "Thunder Road" is the only song he's played more than "Backstreets" in the 18 years of his radio show.

"Bruce has talked about the majesty of the E Street Band, and for me, this will always be a prime example of the majestic-ness of Bruce as a songwriter, as a singer, as an arranger, as a musician," Cunningham said. "You can’t beat the story, of course … All these years later I still have no clue as to what a ' soft infested summer' might be, and I keep trying to figure that out."

Bruce Springsteen’s 3-Hour-20-Minute Show at L.A.’s Forum Resets the Bar for Epic Bossiness: Concert Review

By Chris Willman

Chris Willman

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Springsteen hasn’t spoken so much publicly about the condition that took him off the road for six months, and which caused these particular L.A. dates to be postponed for four. But something about his first Forum show Thursday caused him to get a little bit chattier about the malady.

“We’re sorry we missed you last time,” he said during a spoken interlude in the middle of an epic version of “Tenth Avenue Freezeout,” being performed as the show’s penultimate number  after the setlist had already passed the three-hour point. “I hope we didn’t put you out too much. But, man,” he elaborated, “I had the worst motherfucking bellyache you could ever imagine.”

“When I sang, my belly ached,” he said.

“When I did anything, my belly ached,” he continued.

Bruce Springsteen has fire in the belly. Lucky for him and everyone else, it’s back to being a fire that does not consume.

At a length of three hours and 20 minutes, Springsteen’s opening Forum show pretty much set the bar for not gentle into that good Thursday night. Its 200-minute running time was 40 minutes longer than most other sets of his lately, all of which already test and transcend what a guy in his early 70s who recently recovered from illness ought to be pulling off. It’s reductive, though, to focus too much on the running time, which makes it feel like an endurance test or marathon. Yes, every minute added onto a show beyond the tour mean confers some kind of badge of pride on attendees, and it’s great fun to start doing the numbers as a show begins to expand… but the miracle is not just that he endures.

The miracle is that he bobs and weaves with a dynamic setlist that needs that much expansiveness to sufficiently cover multiple moments of sorrow or grief and “Twist and Shout” (should you be so lucky to get that bonus track as a celebration of life, as Thursday’s crowd did).

As fans have already noted during these first few weeks of the 2024 touring resumption, the setlists tend to be only about 75% set in stone. That’s to say, they’re much looser than when the E Street Band hit the road again in 2023, closer to how they used to be in legendary days of yore. For anyone who likes to go to more than one show on a tour, or just for anybody who enjoys knowing they’re in the presence of some free-spiritedness, this flexibility is a godsend.

Given that the surprises each night are added onto the surety of some of the most powerful song sequences he’s ever constructed for a tour, a 2024 Bruce Springsteen show is really something that gives “overstuffed” a good name.

Most of his shows on this show have opened with “Lonesome Day,” which is nearly an overture for the conflicted lyrical feelings that will come up in the emotionally dynamic hours to come. But occasionally he’ll start off with a ringer in advance even of that opener. Thursday, it was a cover of John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom,” which ain’t nothing but primal — the blues as filtered through a “Nuggets” sensibility. He hadn’t done this oldie since 2016, which augured well for tour premieres and oddities.

Would an oldie this obscure count among the highlights of a three-hour-plus set that includes an inordinate amount of the best rock songs ever written? On the face of it, no. Or yes, for that segment of fans that lives for the idea of audibles being called.

The biggest surprise of the night: the return of Patti Scialfa, who performed on a few 2023 shows and then disappeared from public view. (“Where’s Patti?” isn’t quite up there with “Where’s Shelly?,” but it still remained a question.) Now we knew, without the FBI being called in: His bride is just living her post-E-Street life, happy to show up for a cameo instead of being tied to a recurring gig. “My baby’s back!,” Springsteen exclaimed, kicking off the first of two numbers the couple performed as a team. The recently rare “Tougher Than the Rest” featured Scialfa leaning in close on their single mic for harmony, followed by “Fire.” That number, Springsteen said, hadn’t been played “in a long time. We did do it on Broadway,” he clarified, but “Patti’s never done it.” By which he possibly meant never performed it as a full-on duet; his wife unexpectedly got the first verse of this ‘70s perennial all to herself. (Patti as a Pointer Sister, to name the group that really made the song famous? Live long enough, and all sorts of things can happen.)

The bones of the set were otherwise mostly intact. “Prove It All Night” follows “Lonesome Day” at the beginning, as a promise. But sometimes it seems like rock ‘n’ roll’s power as an elixir won’t be enough, if you’re reallly following how an underlying narrative develops.

“Ghosts” and “Letter to You,” both from the album of the latter name, overtly introduce the theme of loss, so often returned to. Then the mournful hits keep coming, as pointed segues. “My City of Ruins,” whose “Rise up” chorus barely disguises just how sad it is, goes in for more than 10 minutes, with cheerful chatter, as Bruce introduces the band, followed by bittersweet moments dedicated to the group’s fallen members. That in memoriam segued into a cover of the Commodores’ ‘80s hit “Nightshift,” which pays homage to soul music’s lost ‘60s and ‘70s greats, including Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson.

The soul memorial led into “Last Man Standing,” his song about realizing he was the last surviving member of his original band — a song so solemn it’s performed just by Springsteen and a solitary trumpeter, who might as well be playing “Taps.” From there, much of the crowd is relieved to hear Springsteen singing something as light as “Backstreets”… or is it? “Until the end… until the end…,” he sang, drawing one line out into a chant. It’s a “Born to Run”-based suite that has finally, after 49 year, turned into the requiem it was apparently always meant to be.

And then, as this emotionally fraught show drew closer to a close, we got the Three Stooges. That is, during the go-for-broke joy of “Rosalita,” there was a moment when the otherwise stone-faced Little Steven Van Zandt drew close to Springsteen and they indulged in some Larry, Curly and Moe-style face-poking, prodding, mugging and noise-making.

Springsteen has put on a tour that is the most bittersweet show on earth, until it finally settles for being the happiest, and occasionally even goofiest… and then turns heartbreaking again for the final encore. The most abrupt segue might be the final one, when, having climaxed with “Tenth Avenue” and (on this particular night) “Twist and Shout,” he sent the rest of the band off to their sleep while he serenaded the crowd with a completely solo number, “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” boldly sending the audience out thinking again about loved ones they’ve lost, if with a ballad that feels like a comforting lullaby. By the end of the show, he’s kept all these things in balance enough that any of these notes feel like they could be an honest place to land, whether it’s with an Isley Brothers tent revival or a heart-rending ode to creating memories as a means of cheating death.

Given his stage mastery, was it possible Springsteen was moving even himself with this show? It’s probably risky i to parse exactly what emotions a showman this great might be spontaneously feeling. The most deeply emotional moments are deeply baked into the tour. As always, he gave the much-quoted speech about his old friend and bandmate George Theiss’ passing, about the clarity that death brings the living. This should be rote for Springsteen by now, given how little variation he introduces into the homily, as he retells it. Yet his closed eyes looked moist enough as he eulogized his teenaged soulmate once again Thursday night. Honestly, it could also just have been perspiration (even though his face didn’t look that sweaty in the closeups seen on the two big screens for the rest of the show).

Either way, sweat or tears, it was working, like it’s always worked for a few generations now. “You’ll need a good companion for this part of the ride,” Springsteen sang toward the end of the show in “Land of Hope of Dreams,” part of the tumult of climactic numbers. Maybe he didn’t mean that line as an actual rock ‘n’ roll direct-sales pitch at the time he wrote it, but he sure keeps living up to it.

(For Variety ’s review of Springsteen’s San Diego concert March 25, click here .)

Boom Boom Lonesome Day Prove It All Night Trapped Two Hearts Ghosts Letter to You The Promised Land Tougher Than the Rest (with Patti Scialfa) Fire (with Patti Scialfa) Hungry Heart Jole Blon Spirit in the Night No Surrender My City of Ruins Nightshift Last Man Standing Backstreets Because the Night She’s the One Wrecking Ball The Rising Badlands Thunder Road Land of Hope and Dreams Born to Run Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) Bobby Jean Dancing in the Dark Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out Twist and Shout I’ll See You in My Dreams

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Bruce Springsteen Live Review: E Street Band deliver life-affirming succour in flawless opening night

Bruce springsteen & the e street band fire on all cylinders on the opening night of their 2024 tour in phoenix, arizona..

Bruce Springsteen

Footprint Centre, Phoenix, Arizona, March 20, 2024

Bruce Springsteen has one question for the 18,000 plus Tuesday night crowd at Footprint Center in downtown Phoenix, Arizona: “Do you feel the spirit? ”  The audience’s emphatic roar, loud enough to compete with the thundering din of the 17-piece configuration of the E-Street Band rallying behind the 74-year-old Boss indicated a hearty yes. The spirit was felt. Equal parts gospel revival, R&B/soul revue, and battering ram rock and roll barrage, the opening night of Springsteen’s 2024 tour paired firecracker rave-ups with poignant reflections on mortality.

Springsteen was originally scheduled to perform here in November of 2023, before a bout with peptic ulcer disease - “a motherfucker of a bellyache” as Springsteen put it - resulted in a six-month postponement. But the rest and downtime clearly did its work. Stalking the stage in a red flannel and slim blue jeans, his Fender Esquire draped on his back, Springsteen looked rangy and eager.

As “Brooooooce” chants filled the air, the band took the stage promptly at 7:30, bounding into Lonesome Day with galvanic force. Immediately, the power of the E-Street Horns was made clear, as was the swinging force of drummer Max Weinberg - the MVP of the night’s discography-spanning, two-and-a-half-hour set. The show’s first section came fast and hard, alternating between ‘70s classics like Prove It All Night and Darkness On the Edge of Town to more contemporary selections like Ghosts and Letter to You, from his 2020 album of the same name. Not many legacy acts can interject newer material this way, maintaining its hold on the crowd - but then again, not many bands play like this, either: nary a pause between songs, all sweat, effort, and dramatic flair.

READ MORE: The E Street Band make triumphant return to Scottish capital after 42 years

During a blistering Two Hearts, guitarist “Little” Steven Van Zandt and Springsteen adopted a familiar pose, standing face to face around a single microphone. Their camaraderie was palpable, even after nearly five decades of concerts like this one. Van Zandt’s cheeky Nixon impression at the song’s close - peace signs flashing and a vigorous head shake - added a conspiratorial flair to the duo’s stage antics, made all the funnier by the fact that current U.S. President Biden was in town too, wrapping up a campaign stump speech with a visit to El Portal, a local Mexican restaurant just a few blocks away.

After an apocalyptic and harmonica-drenched Promised Land, the band settled into a cool down moment, luxuriating in the R&B contours of Ben E. King’s Don’t Play That Song and The Commodores’ Night Shift, both featured on 2022’s covers album  Only The Strong Survive . With bassist Garry Tallent putting down a solid foundation, a quartet of backing singers made their way down from the risers to join Springsteen in a dancing reverie at the foot of the stage. Bruce even permitted himself a momentary breather: sitting with vocalist Curtis King at the lip of the stage, he marveled at King’s falsetto range, far outside the bounds of Springsteen’s own voice.

READ MORE: Bruce Springsteen reportedly working on second album of soul covers

Phoenix and Springsteen have a storied history; bolstered by freeform radio play and sell-out gigs, the city was one of the first to offer him a commercial foothold outside of the East Coast. Phoenix shows usually feature a nostalgic spiel about his past experiences here, but last night, Springsteen dedicated his mid-show rap to his first rock and roll band, The Castiles . Alone with his acoustic guitar, he dedicated Last Man Standing to George Theiss, his bandmate, who passed away in 2018, leaving Springsteen the sole surviving Castile. “Death brings a certain clarity, a certain clarity of thought,” Springsteen mused. “Death’s final and lasting gift to us, the living, is you get an expanded vision of the life you could live yourself.”

As if to underscore the point, things revved up from there and wouldn’t let up again. Bolstered by Roy Bittan’s cascading keys and iconic saxophone solos administered by the towering Jake Clemons, who joined the band in 2012 following his uncle Clarence’s passing, the gritty noirs of Backstreets and Badlands possessed manic energy. Not to be outdone, guitarist Nils Lofgren brought a frighting, nearly Sonic Youth-worthy noise solo to “Because The Night,” spinning in circles and fluttering across the fretboard sans guitar pick.

READ MORE: Bruce Springsteen's essential albums

The arena lights lit for the last quarter of the show, the band dug deeper in, ripping through Thunder Road, Born to Run, Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), and Dancing in the Dark, fitting as the lack of dramatic stage lighting revealed just how sweaty everyone was - especially when Bruce tore his shirt open, revealing his open chest to hoots and cheers. Springsteen abandoned his guitar (tossing it with daredevil intensity to his tech throughout the night) and waded into the front rows, selecting one of a handful of song request signs in the audience, a plea for Twist and Shout from an 18-year-old attending his first concert. Grinding it out with the enthusiasm of the world’s most successful bar band, Springsteen and Van Zandt joked about keeping the festivities going all night. “Fuck the curfew,” Van Zandt cheered - even though he had his own Wicked Cool Records after party to get to at the nearby Crescent Ballroom.

No doubt, the audience would have welcomed even more, but it’s hard to imagine what could possibly be left to give. Shaking hands, clasping shoulders, and beaming widely to each individual member, Springsteen bid the band farewell and once again picked up his acoustic, offering a solitary and sparse “I’ll See You In My Dreams” to close out.

“Death is not the end/I’ll see you in my dreams,” he sang, a final note of melancholy and remembrance to all those who’ve gone before him. The reading was devoid of maudlin sentiment. Instead, it reinforced one of the songwriter’s most resounding lines: “It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.” As the audience shuffled out and into the cool spring air, that gladness was painted on their faces, the spirit lingering with the ringing in our ears.

Lonesome Day

No Surrender

Darlington County

Prove It All Night

Darkness on the Edge of Town

Letter to You

The Promised Land

Spirit in the Night

Don't Play That Song (You Lied)

Mary's Place

Last Man Standing

Backstreets

Because the Night

She's the One

Wrecking Ball

Thunder Road

Born To Run

Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

Dancing in the Dark

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

Twist and Shout

I'll See You in My Dreams

Photo: John Medina/Getty

The Best Of Bruce Springsteen is out April 19 on Sony Music as a 2LP, CD and expanded digital version. Pre-order a copy: Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV

We found the cheapest tickets for all 2024 Bruce Springsteen concerts

In the penultimate episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Bruce Springsteen comes down with COVID after meeting Larry David.

As a result, his “Bruce Springsteen” character had to put his “farewell tour” on hold and the audience was led to believe “he may never sing again.”

Thankfully, the 74-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is COVID-free and midway through an arena tour, that, as far as we know, is not his last.

Based on our findings, Springsteen and his E Street Band have 21 concerts lined up all over North America from now up until November this year.

Along the way, they’ll stop into Albany’s MVP Arena on Monday, April 15 and Syracuse’s JMA Wireless Dome on Thursday, April 18.

They’ll also headline the 2024 Sea.Hear.Now Festival in Asbury Park, NJ on Sunday, Sept. 15 along with Noah Kahan , The Gaslight Anthem , Trey Anastasio Band and more.

For fans that want to catch The Boss live this year, tickets are available for all upcoming gigs.

At the time of publication, we found seats for select shows going for as low as $53 before fees on Vivid Seats.

Other concerts had tickets starting anywhere from $57 to $484 before fees.

Curious how much it will run you to see a healthy Bruce play the hits with Little Stevie, Max Weinberg and Jake Clemons live this year?

We’ve got everything you need to know and more about Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s 2024 tour below.

All prices listed above are subject to fluctuation.

A complete calendar including all tour dates, venues and links to the cheapest tickets available can be found here:

(Note: The New York Post confirmed all above prices at the publication time. All prices are in US dollars, subject to fluctuation and include additional fees at checkout .)

Vivid Seats is a verified secondary market ticketing platform, and prices may be higher or lower than face value, depending on demand. 

They offer a 100% buyer guarantee that states your transaction will be safe and secure and your tickets will be delivered prior to the event.

For the first time since December 2010, Springsteen is performing in his hometown Asbury Park.

The Sea.Hear.Now Festival , taking place Sept. 14-15, will mark The Boss’ headline homecoming.

He’ll be joined by notable acts Norah Jones , Black Crowes , 311 , The Revivalists and Kool and the Gang at the genre-hopping extravaganza in addition to the big names listed earlier.

Want to go to the fest on the beach?

Single and multi-day Sea.Hear.Now passes can be found here .

On Friday, Sept. 1, 2023, the New York Post saw Springsteen in concert at East Rutherford, NJ’s MetLife Stadium.

“Each song bled into the next with Bruce’s signature “1, 2, 3, 4!” cry giving the crowd a full-on musical thrill ride that never ran out of gas and was simultaneously heavy, silly and soaring sometimes all within the span of one song,” the publication reported.

If you want to read more about the lively show, you can read the NY Post’s glowing review here .

Here’s what Asbury Park’s most famous band play at the Sept. 1 MetLife Stadium show we attended, courtesy of  Set List FM .

01.)  “Lonesome Day”

02.)  “Night”

03.)  “No Surrender”

04.)  “Ghosts”

05.)  “Prove It All Night”

06.)  “Darkness On The Edge Of Town”

07.)  “Letter To You”

08.)  “The Promised Land”

09.)  “Spirit In The Night”

10.)  “Kitty’s Back”

11.)  “Nightshift” (Commodores cover)

12.)  “The E Street Shuffle”

13.)  “Mary’s Place”

14.)  “Last Man Standing”

15.)  “Backstreets”

16.)  “Because The Night” (Patti Smith cover)

17.)  “She’s The One”

18.)  “Wrecking Ball”

19.)  “The Rising”

20.)  “Badlands”

21.)  “Thunder Road”

22.)  “Born To Run”

23.)  “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”

24.)  “Seven Nights To Rock” (Moon Mullican cover)

24.)  “Glory Days”

25.)  “Dancing In The Dark”

26.)  “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out”

27.)  “I’ll See You In My Dreams”

Shortly after Springsteen’s three-concert stint at MetLife last year, he postponed the rest of his tour due to a peptic ulcer disease.

“Bruce Springsteen has continued to recover steadily from peptic ulcer disease over the past few weeks and will continue treatment through the rest of the year on doctor’s advice,” the group shared on  Instagram last September.

In his first show back at Phoenix’s Footprint Center, Springsteen addressed the postponment.

“Phoenix, first I want to apologize if there was any discomfort because we had to move the show last time,” Springsteen said to the crowd. “I hope we didn’t inconvenience you too much.”

To read more about the return — where he was mocked for resembling Tilda Swinton after tearing his shirt open — check out the New York Post’s story here .

A surprising number of stars that dominated the charts in the ’70s and ’80s are back on the road this year.

Here are our five favorite acts you won’t want to miss these next few months.

•  Rolling Stones

•  Neil Young

• Bob Dylan with Willie Nelson and Robert Plant

•  Electric Light Orchestra

•  Eric Clapton

Want to see who else is out and about? Check out our list of the  52 biggest classic rockers on tour in 2024 here to find out.

Vivid Seats is the New York Post's official ticketing partner. We may receive revenue from this partnership for sharing this content and/or when you make a purchase.

• Consequence

Tom Morello Reunites with Bruce Springsteen in Los Angeles: Watch

For the tour debuts of "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and "American Skin (41 Shots)"

Former E Street Band touring member Tom Morello reunited with  Bruce Springsteen at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California on Sunday (April 7th), joining the Boss on guitar for “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and “American Skin (41 Shots).”

Marking the 2024 tour debuts of both songs, it was also Springsteen’s first time playing “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and “American Skin (41 Shots)” with the E Street Band since 2016 and 2017, respectively. Watch fan-shot footage of both performances below.

Get Bruce Springsteen Tickets Here

Echoing Springsteen’s Thursday night show at Kia Forum , his wife, Patti Scialfa, came on stage for performances of “Tougher Than the Rest” and “Fire.” Other notable songs in the setlist included “The Promised Land,” “Hungry Heart,” “Backstreets,” and Springsteen’s first performance of “Open All Night” in a decade.

Per usual, the encore was stacked with classics like “Born to Run,” “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” “Glory Days,” and “Dancing in the Dark.” See the full setlist below.

Springsteen and the E Street Band are slated to tour throughout North America, the UK, and Europe for much of the remainder of 2024. Grab your seats for North American dates here and international shows here .

Morello and Springsteen have been occasional collaborators since 2008, when the Rage Against the Machine guitarist first joined Springsteen and the E Street Band on stage. The following year, Morello was a special guest during Springsteen’s closing set at the 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert at Madison Square Garden.

After playing guitar on two tracks from Springsteen’s 2012 album,  Wrecking Ball , Morello filled in for E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt during the Australian leg of the supporting tour. He followed up by contributing heavily to the 2014 album High Hopes — including a re-recording of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” — and once again stood in for Van Zandt on the “High Hopes Tour.”

In 2021, Morello recruited Springsteen and Eddie Vedder for a cover of AC/DC’s Highway to Hell,” which appears on his solo album,  The Atlas Underground Fire .

Bruce Springsteen Setlist Open All Night (First time since 2014) Lonesome Day Prove It All Night Two Hearts Ghosts Letter to You The Promised Land Death to My Hometown Tougher Than the Rest (with Patti Scialfa) Fire (with Patti Scialfa) Hungry Heart Sherry Darling (Tour debut, sign request) Spirit in the Night My City of Ruins Nightshift (Commodores cover) Last Man Standing (Acoustic with Barry Danielian on trumpet) Backstreets Because the Night (Patti Smith Group cover) Wrecking Ball American Skin (41 Shots) [with Tom Morello] (Tour debut, first time with the E Street Band since 2017) The Ghost of Tom Joad (with Tom Morello) [Tour debut, first time with the E Street Band since 2016] The Rising Badlands Thunder Road

Encore: Born to Run Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) Glory Days Dancing in the Dark Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out Detroit Medley

Encore 2: I’ll See You in My Dreams (Solo acoustic)

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Music + Concerts | Bruce Springsteen dazzles in a marathon 3 hour…

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Music + concerts, music + concerts | bruce springsteen dazzles in a marathon 3 hour and 20 minute show at the kia forum on thursday.

Bruce Springsteen has talked of life and mortality as themes of the world tour that he and the E Street Band kicked off a year ago, and in the setlist Thursday, April 4 for the first of two shows at the Kia Forum there were plenty of of songs that reflected those feelings.

But at the end of the night, after 32 songs over three hours and 20 minutes, it’s the living that shined brightest through his time on stage, and the joy — of Springsteen, his band, and fans alike — that lingered after the final notes faded.

It’s been eight years since Springsteen last played Southern California . His long run on Broadway took a few years. The pandemic claimed a few more. And then, when he was scheduled to stop here in December, peptic ulcer disease forced the postponement of the Forum shows, and left Springsteen worried whether he’d ever sing again.

Any doubts about his vim and vigor vanished quickly in a show that ran a half hour longer than most on this tour,  which saw Springsteen at 74 as impossibly energized as ever.

Bruce Springsteen, right, performs with E Street Band members guitarist Nils Lofgren, Jake Clemons on saxophone, Soozie Tyrell on violin and drummer Max Weinberg, rear, during the first of two sold out shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Thursday night April 4, 2024. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Bruce Springsteen, right, performs with E Street Band member saxophonist Jake Clemons during the first of two sold out shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Thursday night April 4, 2024. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform during the first of two sold out shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Thursday night April 4, 2024. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Bruce Springsteen, left, and E Street Band members drummer Max Weinberg and Stevie Van Zandt, right, perform during the first of two sold out shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Thursday night April 4, 2024. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Bruce Springsteen opens his show during the first of two sold out shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Thursday night April 4, 2024. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Bruce Springsteen, right, performs with E Street Band members Jake Clemons on saxophone and drummer Max Weinberg, rear, during the first of two sold out shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Thursday night April 4, 2024. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Bruce Springsteen, left, and E Street Band member Stevie Van Zandt, right, perform during the first of two sold out shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Thursday night April 4, 2024. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg perform during the first of two sold out shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Thursday night April 4, 2024. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

An airliner flies over the Kia Forum that is lit up for the first of two sold out Bruce Springsteen shows in Inglewood on Thursday night, April 4, 2024. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

“Boom Boom” opened the show with a bang, the bluesy John Lee Hooker cover getting Springsteen and the 17 members of his band revved up for the night to come. Two songs later, the opening notes of “Prove It All Night” got a roar from the crowd for the fan favorite off “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” and from that point, the songs flowed one after another, separated only by Springsteen counting off the tempo before each new number.

The E Street Band remains one of the great bands in rock history, with guitarist Steven Van Zandt, bassist Gerry Tallent, pianist Roy Bittan, and drummer Max Weinberg going back 50 years or so with the Boss. Guitarist Nils Lofgren and singer-guitarist Patti Scialfa, Springsteen’s wife, are the new kids with only 40 years in the band.

Their tight, intuitive playing sets the base for Springsteen to go where he likes. Slow it down for “Trapped.” No problem. Pick up the pace on “Two Hearts”? Van Zandt joins Springsteen on a shared microphone, singing harmonies, their faces inches apart, as they have for half a century.

After “The Promised Land,” the second of three “Darkness” tracks in the show, Springsteen announced Scialfa was in the house, and brought her out to sing a pair of songs with him. “Tougher Than the Rest,” a slow-burning romance, saw them harmonizing closely as Springsteen shifted from a low solo on his blonde Telecaster to harmonica for the finish. “Fire” was playful, fun, and a little bit sexy, Springsteen and Scialfa clearly having a blast with the number.

Each night on tour Springsteen plucks a sign from the audience to play an unexpected request. On Thursday, that arrived on the stage in the form of a white bedsheet spray-painted with black letters so hard to read Springsteen made a joke about it. The song, “Jole Blon,” was gorgeous, a Cajun-inflected traditional number that featured Soozie Tyrell on fiddle and Charles Giordano on accordian.

While “Born To Run” provided the most songs in the show with five — we’ll be getting to those soon, be patient! — the oldest songs often prompted the biggest responses from the crowd. “Spirit in the Night,” from Springsteen’s 1973 debut, “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.” was the first show-stopper of the night, its jazzy R&B giving Springsteen and the band, including saxophonist Jake Clemons, a chance to stretch and vamp a little.

“My City of Ruins,” from “The Rising,” shifted from the ecstasy of “Spirit” to a slower gospel soul, with Springsteen testifying most directly on thoughts of mortality.

“I know there’s a lot of us out there that are missing somebody special,” he said during a mid-song break to address the crowd. “Now I don’t know where we go when all of this is over. I just know what remains. And the only thing we can guarantee tonight is that if you’re here, and we’re here, then those that we are missing are here with us tonight.”

Two songs later, he finished the somber midpart of the show with a mostly solo acoustic guitar performance of “Last Man Standing,” a song inspired by the death of the last member of his first teenage band. “Death brings a certain clarity of mind,” Springsteen said by way of introduction. “And grieving is the price we pay for love.”

At that point, barely halfway through the show, things shifted toward the light and the living. “Backstreets,” from “Born To Run,” still has a melancholy feel, but its protagonist lives with his memories of young love and the places they used to travel, with Bittan’s piano part the secret sauce to its beauty.

“Because The Night,” which Springsteen gave to Patti Smith to record in the late ’70s, was reclaimed as a hard rocker that wrapped up with glorious guitar solo from Lofgren. “She’s The One” walloped its Bo Diddley beat in a primal rock ‘n’ roll rhythm.

The main set climaxed with “Badlands,” a Springsteen classic from the ’70s about a restless young man with dreams bigger than his life, and “Thunder Road,” one of his greatest numbers, which opened with the crowd singing loudly on the slow first verse before Springsteen and the band launched it to a huge finish.

At this point we’ve reached the encore, which Springsteen fans know means another 50 minutes of music, with one hit dropped after another.

After “Land of Hope and Dreams” opened it up, “Born To Run,” symphonic rock ‘n’roll hymn, exploded from the stage, the arena lights up now for fans to sing along. “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” another early favorite, remains a joyful song of desire, and a chance for Springsteen and the band to take flight into extended versions. Here it wrapped up with Springsteen, Van Zandt, Lofgren, Tyrell and Clemons dancing and goofing at the end of a short ramp into the pit.

“Dancing In The Dark” is one of the sweetest simple pop songs that Springsteen’s ever written. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” saw him circle the pit, singing from a ramp at its edge to the fans in the floor seats. And “Twist and Shout” was a rock and roll party.

The 17 musicians walked off the stage then, with Springsteen giving them a pat on the back or handshake, telling them “good job” as if they were punching out at the end of a shift at the factory. He is the Boss, and he’s a good boss, too.

Then, one last encore, solo on stage with his acoustic guitar, singing “I’ll See You In My Dreams.” Or maybe on Sunday night, when he returns to the Kia Forum, as full of life as ever he was.

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Bruce Springsteen Hits Hollywood, Proves There’s a Lot of Life in Aging Rock Stars

The same week he appeared on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and a biopic landed at Disney, the Boss delivered a roof-shaking celebration that was also a meditation on loss

I need to start this story with a memory.

In 1988, back in the days when I mostly wrote about rock ‘n’ roll, I went to Long Island to see Bruce Springsteen play the Nassau Coliseum. Fellow Rolling Stone writer Mikal Gilmore and I were sitting in the front row of the risers on one side of the stage, and Bruce spotted us during the encores and gave a little wave. (We’d both spent time with him recently doing stories.) Then he went back to the microphone, yelled, “This one’s for all the aging rock critics out there!” and hit the opening riff of his ode to passing time, “Glory Days.”  

For the record, I was only 33 at the time, and Mikal was a couple of years older. I suppose we technically qualified as aging rock critics because we weren’t getting younger, and it was a kick to get any kind of dedication. But “aging?” Really?  And this week, 36 years later, I unavoidably thought back to that night while I was at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles watching a 74-year-old Springsteen rip through that same song.

So hey, Bruce: This one’s for all the aging rock stars out there!

But you know what? An aging rock star can be a beautiful thing. Springsteen’s two shows at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles in early April got me thinking about the kind of concertgoing experience I seem to be having frequently these days – one in which a performer I’ve been listening to for years uses the concert stage not simply to play the hits, but to explore the whole idea of loss and, let’s say, maturity.

When I heard about a Washington Post op-ed piece titled “Take it from me: See your music heroes before it’s too late” in late March, I figured somebody else might have noticed that, too. I was mistaken. The piece, from a conservative pundit who usually writes about politics, turned out to be a notably dumb one that listed more than 130 acts the guy had seen or wanted to see, without saying anything interesting or insightful about any of them.

Mind you, seeing your musical heroes before it’s too late is a good idea, provided you don’t sit there checking the setlists against your mental checklist of the greatest hits you want to hear. But really, the valuable experiences are ones with artists who recognize that both they and their fans have been on a journey that has lasted decades, leaving all of us older, wearier and maybe even wiser in the process.  

Last month, for example, the wonderful artist, musician and filmmaker Laurie Anderson played the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, with the highlight of the show coming when she played “Junior Dad,” a wrenching song from the much-maligned album by Anderson’s late husband, Lou Reed, and the hard-rock band Metallica. Anderson’s band transformed Metallica’s music into something gentler and spookier, while Reed’s disembodied voice sang “Would you come to me / If I was half drowning / An arm above the last wave” as a ghostly image of his face appeared on the backdrop. The song, which settles around the phrase “age withered and changed him,” was Anderson looking back at Reed looking back, taking layers of loss and turning them into a work of terrible beauty.

At the Forum last fall, Peter Gabriel put on a visually dazzling show that focused on rich new songs about loss and mortality. “When you get to my sort of age,” he said, “you either run away from mortality or you jump into it and try and live life to the full.” (The Washington Post writer, for the record, hated that show because Gabriel didn’t play enough old songs.)  

Bob Dylan, meanwhile, is performing some of his quietest but most mesmerizing shows, based largely on an album, “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” that might be summed up by the lyric “I sleep with life and death in the same bed” from his song “I Contain Multitudes.” Even Tom Jones, the gyrating Welshman who you’d expect to play the smashes, responded to a hip injury by belting out songs from his past and from the recent album “Surrounded by Time” while seated on a stool, with between-song stories turning the show into an unexpectedly moving career travelogue in which the music was driven by the memories and the audience could measure the years since we’d first heard, say, “It’s Not Unusual.”

Springsteen didn’t do that kind of show at the Forum; he’d already done it on stage with “Springsteen on Broadway” for 267 shows mostly in 2017 and 2018. He came to L.A. at a time when you might expect some glee: He’s back on the road after sitting out a few months because of a peptic ulcer; his wife, Patti Scialfa, was on hand for a couple of songs each night; and this was happening in the same week he appeared on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and the same week that writer-director Scott Cooper’s “Deliver Me From Nowhere,” a movie in which Jeremy Allen White will play Springsteen as he wrote and recorded his haunting 1982 album “Nebraska,” got a deal with Disney/20th Century. 

(Springsteen opened the second Forum concert with a supercharged and extremely rare performance of “Open All Night,” a song from “Nebraska” and a likely nod to Cooper, who was in the audience.)

And much of the Forum shows – particularly the second show on Sunday night, which had a goofiness and giddiness that got a little lost in a muddy sound mix and ragged vocals on Thursday’s opening night – were textbook illustrations of Peter Gabriel’s line about embracing mortality and living life fully.

But along with the roof-shaking celebration, touchstones sprinkled throughout the set and occasional comments from the stage helped turn a rock ‘n’ roll celebration into a deep meditation on, as Springsteen said, “what’s been lost and what remains.” The recent song “Ghosts” comes early in every show and is true to its title: “I turn up the volume, let the spirits be my guide / Meet you brother and sister on the other side.” “Wrecking Ball” may have been inspired by an old New Jersey stadium about to be torn down, but that has never been what the defiant song is really about, while “I’ll See You in My Dreams” ends each show with a gentle benediction.

And then there were the moments where the subtext became explicit. A few years ago, Springsteen used his song “My City of Ruins,” originally written for the decaying New Jersey town of Asbury Park, to salute Clarence Clemons and Dan Federici, two members of his E Street Band who have died. But now he uses it for a “roll call” in which he introduces the band before asking, “Are we missing anybody?” Then he answers the question himself:  

“There are a lot of us out there that are missing somebody special. Now I don’t know where we go when all of this is over, but I know what remains. And the only thing I can guarantee tonight if that if you’re here, and we’re here, then those that are missing are here with us. If you’re here and we’re here, then they are here .”

With those anchors, and with the one-two punch of “Last Man Standing” and “Backstreets” turning into a tribute to the teenage friend whose death had made Springsteen the only living member of his first high-school band, the rest of the set took on a reflective air even when it rocked like mad. A song like “Spirit in the Night,” more than 50 years old, is now less the chronicle of a wild Saturday night than a fond recollection from a hazily romanticized past. The night was quite deliberately full of all kinds of ghosts, a celebration that never ignored the loss that comes with time.

In his 2016 autobiography, “Born to Run,” Springsteen called his legendary concerts “fiction, theater, a creation; it isn’t reality.” That description no doubt applies to current show as well, but real life and real loss does intrude, and the show is better for it.  

In that way, it had echoes of Laurie Anderson, of Peter Gabriel, of Bob Dylan, of Tom Jones and no doubt others. (Even the Rolling Stones may have to face mortality on their upcoming “Hackney Diamonds” tour, which starts later this month and will be their biggest tour since the death of drummer Charlie Watts.)

And yeah, about three hours into the show, Springsteen did “Glory Days,” 36 years and six days after dedicating the joyously rueful song (“Time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of glory days”) to a pair of, um, aging rock critics.

This time, there was no dedication but it went out to, let’s be honest, an arena full of aging rock fans, who dutifully sang along when Bruce pointed the microphone our way to supply the final four words of the line, “I hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it / But I probably will .”

The song suggests that Springsteen knew age would catch up with all of us back when he wrote it 40 years ago. It has caught up with him in some visible ways: How he moves on stage now, in the wake of the ulcer and the postponements, is not how he used to move. But that’s almost fitting, because he is one of a valuable array of performers who can simultaneously rock in the face of loss while also feeling every inch of that loss.

Great music can be a way to shed the years and to take stock of them. And the artist who can do both are the ones who are truly providing a reason to see your heroes before it’s too late.

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