"Albany," he shouted over the cheers of the crowd. "Are you ready to rock tonight?"
A rhetorical question if there ever was one. The sold-out audience roared their delight, and so it came to pass: A 2 1/2-hour, 24-song, end-to-end rock and roll extravaganza, as only The Boss can deliver.
Springsteen and his modified E Street Band (more on that later) were touring, in theory, in support of his latest CD, "Working On A Dream." But the band plucked only three songs from that recording, including the title tune.
There were a lot of new faces on stage Thursday. Charlie Giordano, from Springsteen's "Seeger Sessions" band, has replaced the late Danny Federici on organ and accordion. The band, which appears to be contractually prohibited from performing with any number less than 10 members, has also added backup vocalists Cindy Mizelle and Curtis King. Patti Scialfa was nowhere to be seen, and Springsteen noted that she was back home with the kids.
But Thursday night, according to Springsteen, was the first time in 35 years that the band was performing without drummer Max Weinberg, who is filling a contractual obligation as Conan O'Brien's house drummer.
Instead, Weinberg's son Jay, who has been performing a few numbers each night on the first leg of the tour, filled in. And the kid did
The show was uptempo throughout. The band opened with "Badlands" and then "Radio Nowhere." In the latter tune, Bruce allowed his new drummer a little soloing time to get him warmed up.
A raved-up "Outlaw Pete" followed, which segued into "No Surrender."
An early highlight of the show was "Seeds," with Springsteen grinding out a stinging guitar solo, which was matched a few numbers later by E Streeter Nils Lofgren on "Ghost of Tom Joad."
Throughout this tour, the band has been performing a cover tune from the 1960s. On Thursday, Springsteen gave the crowd "Mony Mony," the old Tommy James chestnut.
Following a couple of war horses from the 1970s, "Promised Land" and Backstreets," the band returned to the present with "Kingdom of Years" and two songs from "The Rising:" "Lonesome Day" and the title tune. The final song of the regular set was a rollicking "Born to Run" with the audience singing along virtually the entire way.
In recognition of the present economic situation, Springsteen dug up the old Steven Foster spiritual, "Hard Times Come Again No More" to open the encore. The band gave the song a gospel inflection, as Mizelle and King stepped to the front of the stage.
This was followed by the wonderful, jazzy "Kitty's Back," which featured solos by Giordano on the organ, Springsteen on the guitar and the nimble-fingered Professor Roy Bittan tickling the ivories at Stage Right.
The ending was a bang-bang-bang affair, with "Land of Hope and Dreams" following by the feverish "This American Land." Then the lights came up, and the whole arena frolicked to "Glory Days" before going away exhilarated.
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