Review: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band make a triumphant return to the Wells Fargo Center

It wasn’t until the fifth song that I got goose bumps.

That was after Bruce Springsteen walked onstage Thursday at the Wells Fargo Center and greeted his fans with a robust “Philly! My people!” He then counted off the intro to “No Surrender,” a song that suggests that if you keep the faith with yourself and your community, rock and roll just might save your life.

That kicked off a joyous 2-hour-45-minute sold-out show that was Springsteen and the E Street Band’s first in South Philadelphia in nearly seven years. It also marked the resumption of a tour in which three previous dates were postponed due to an undisclosed illness.

So after going without a Springsteen concert for the longest stretch since he made his bones in the Philadelphia market half a century ago, ardent supporters who aged along with the 73-year-old songwriter — a friend of mine in the category himself described the crowd as “a lot of old white people”—were left to wonder if Thursday’s show was even going to happen.

Was the Boss ready to come back to work?

He was. And he had plenty of work to do. The euphoria among fans after last year’s announcement of the E Street Band’s return to touring was mixed with sticker shock outrage, when Ticketmaster’s “dynamic pricing:” model resulted in some tickets selling for as much as $5,000.

And many fans were as dismayed by the unapologetic response to the controversy by Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau and the Boss himself, who said “if there’s any complaints on the way out, you can have your money back.”

So was there any reason to demand a refund after Thursday’s show? Not by any right minded individual. Does the Boss still have it? Of course he does.

» READ MORE: Best of The Boss: Bruce Springsteen’s 10 best Philadelphia shows

Springsteen and the E Streeters — whose membership swelled to 18 strong when all five horn players and four back up singers were on stage — delivered a rousing, frequently moving, emotionally rich 25-song show.

(Springsteen’s wife, singer-guitarist Patti Scialfa, was absent, as she has been on many nights of this tour. No explanation of the illness that led to show postponements was given. Was it Springsteen himself who was ill? At times he did sound a little hoarse.)

There were moments when my crisis of faith cracked. “Letter To You,” the title track to the 2020 album in which he addresses fans trying “to summon all my heart finds true” rang a little hollow in the wake of the ticket kerfuffle.

And I wish that when Springsteen sang “poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king, and king ain’t satisfied till he rules everything” exorbitant ticket prices didn’t come to mind. I’d prefer to simply be pumping my fist in the air and shouting along to the line that has encapsulated the crux of the Springsteen world view since 1978: “It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive!”

But really, the Boss and band had me all-in by that fifth song, which was “The Promised Land,” also from 1978′s Darkness on the Edge of Town. During that instrumental break before the final verse I got all tingly.

When the saxophone part played by Jake Clemons — whose uncle Clarence was Springsteen’s right hand “Big Man” until his death in 2011 — gave way to the bandleader’s harmonica solo, and then the line about blowing away “the lies that leaves you lost and broken hearted” it clicked. Something masterful was happening.

The evening later peaked with Springsteen and his comic foil and musical consigliere Steven Van Zandt mugging for the camera on a goofy, ecstatic “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight).” That was part of a seven song encore that kept the party going with “Glory Days,” “Dancing In the Dark” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out.”

But this was a Springsteen show, so it was also a serious affair, an expertly constructed set that held together with thematic unity. Songs from various stages of Springsteen’s bountiful career held tight to friendship, love and community as bulwarks against the world at large and the inevitable ravages of the passage of time.

That started with “No Surrender,”: written in his early 30s and addressed to Van Zandt, with whom “we swore blood bothers against the wind, now I’m ready to grow young again.”

It was there in other Born in the U.S.A. songs from “Glory Days” (“I hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it, but I probably will”) to “Dancing in the Dark,” sitting around getting older, realizing the joke’s on him.

Even in “Wrecking Ball,” a song inspired by the demolition of a football stadium that got booed at the mention of the New York Giants, a metaphor about resilience was found: “We know that come tomorrow, none of this will be here / So hold tight to your anger, and don’t fall to your fears.”

The show included no special just-for-Philly additions, though Springsteen did thank the crowd at the end of the night, saying “Philadelphia has meant so much to the E Street Band for so long.”

“Kitty’s Back” and “The E Street Shuffle” two loose, shambling cuts from the 1973′s The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle — an album dear to the heart of longtime fans — were performed as part of the regular set list. Both featured the five man horn section anchored by Clemons and benefited from percussionist Anthony Almonte, who added accents to the straight-ahead drummer of Max Weinberg.

Curtis King Jr., who was joined by Lisa Lowell, Ada Dyer and Michelle Moore on backup vocals, sang brightly, stepping out with Springsteen to duet on “Nightshift,” the Commodores cover on the Boss’ new Only the Strong Survive album.

Two more highlights: “Johnny 99,” from 1982′s Nebraska, was reshaped as a rollicking roadhouse workout showcasing the horns. That was oddly jaunty considering it’s about a murderer requesting his own execution. And the cover of reggae great Jimmy Cliff’s “Trapped” was precise and powerful, fitting nicely into the familiar Springsteen motifs of claustrophobia and escape.

With the delay due to the COVID shutdown and the ticket talk, one thing that’s been lost is that this tour, while chock full of treasured standouts like “Prove It All night” and “Backstreets” is in support of Letter To You, a rock-solid late career release whose subject is the joys and sorrows accrued over a lifetime of playing music.

The figure that haunts the album is George Theis, the leader of Springsteen’s first group, The Castiles. He was the subject of the solo acoustic show closer “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” which conveyed the lovely notion of the dead living on in our internal lives.

Theis’ death in 2018 left Springsteen as the sole surviving member of The Castiles, the group he joined as a teenager to begin what he called “the greatest adventure of my life: playing in my first rock and roll band.”

It also inspired “Last Man Standing” the tender Letter To You song that was at the absolute center of Thursday night’s show. In his spoken intro, Springsteen talked about the clarity of thought that came over him standing at Theis’ deathbed.

“At 15, everything is tomorrow and hello, hello, hello. And as time passes, there are a lot more goodbyes,” he said. “It reminds you how important living every moment of your life is. So be good to your loved ones, be good to yourselves and be good to this world of ours.” In other words, as a pretty good songwriter once put it, remember this: “It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.”

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band return to Philadelphia to play Citizens Bank Park on Aug. 16 and 18. Tickets are available at Phillies.com/Springsteen.

“No Surrender”

“Ghosts”

“Prove It All Night”

“Letter To You”

“The Promised Land”

“Candy’s Room”

“Kitty’s Back”

“Nightshift”

“The E Street Shuffle”

“Trapped”

“Johnny 99″

“Last Man Standing”

“Backstreets”

“Because The Night”

“She’s The One”

“Wrecking Ball”

“The Rising”

“Badlands”

(The band takes a bow, but does not leave the stage)

“Thunder Road”

“Born To Run”

“Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”

“Glory Days”

“Dancing In the Dark”

“Tenth Avenue Freeze Out”

“I’ll See You In My Dreams”