Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform at Chase Center in San Francisco on March 28, 2024. Photo: Nick Buckmaster.

SAN FRANCISCO — “Can you feel the spirit!? Can you feel the spirit, now!?” Bruce Springsteen implored about halfway through the first of two concerts at Chase Center this week.

The Boss was fully dedicated to the part of barnstorming preacher stealing hearts at a traveling show as he introduced the next song, the swinging “Spirit in the Night.” Like each song of the 29-song, nearly three-hour performance, the song demonstrated not only his resolve to perform at full strength following his peptic ulcer disease diagnosis in 2023, but also the strength of the E Street Band, which numbered nearly 20 strong (even without his wife, Patti Scialfa, who hasn’t appeared at any 2024 shows, yet). Midway through the song, Springsteen sat down on the lip of the stage and was joined by Jake Clemons, who delivered a longing, mellow solo—in one of the few moments of the night that didn’t pummel attendees in high-octane rock and soul.

Springsteen is the type of performer who can steal the show with a wink or control an army of loyal fans with a simple “C’mon!” He’s also a team player who surrounded himself with not only talented musicians but the kinds of friends with whom he doesn’t have to say much to communicate, other than the occasional, “C’mon, Stevie!” to get second in command Stevie Van Zandt to turn up the heat even higher.

This is a man who’s now 74 and last year thought for a while that he may never get to perform again. The first San Francisco show, his fourth show since the tour restarted last week in Phoenix—originally scheduled for December of last year—was classic Bruce Springsteen: a scrambled setlist that introduced several songs for the for the first time on this tour, tight musicianship presided over by drummer Max Weinberg, and plenty of passion from the star and his fans.

Springsteen’s voice remained powerful and his guitar fretwork formidable, and he and the E Streeters opened with the surprise intro of simmering and triumphant “Something in the Night,” from 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town. In all, the band covered material from 11 albums, which has not been the norm so far on his Only the Strong Survive Tour in 2024.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform at Chase Center in San Francisco on March 28, 2024.

Triumphant is an apt descriptor for pretty much the entire show, as the intensity kept building during songs like “Lonesome Day” (which highlighted the musicianship of violinist Soozie Tyrell and—the first of many times—Clemons), “Ghosts” and “Two Hearts,” which had a short snippet of Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston’s “It Takes Two.”

Springsteen showed off his own soloing strength with angular stabs from his guitar on “Prove It All Night,” which culminated in a cacophonous eruption.

“Atlantic City” apparently made its tour debut because a fan in the front requested it with a sign. Springsteen picked it up and showed the band members, who nodded their heads, and off they went. The five-member brass section made it a highlight.

The ensemble turned into the E Street marching band on Celtic-punk-tinged “Death to My Hometown,” which had Clemons and several others pacing around and striking drums themselves. Following the lively “Letter to You,” the title track to Springsteen’s 2020 album, and cathartic “The Promised Land,” Springsteen started the evening’s first massive singalong during “Hungry Heart,” during which he pulled plectrums from his pocket to hand to fans.

The Boss didn’t play many songs from his most-recent covers album (and tour namesake), Only the Strong Survive, but he included “Nightshift” by the Commodores, even doing a few steps of choreography with one of his backing vocalists. The song ended in a beautiful blend of vocal harmonies by the group, whom he later introduced as the E Street Choir.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

After the forlorn “Racing in the Street,” the Springsteen, who was less chatty than in his previous Bay Area shows (he last performed at Oakland Arena in 2016), talked about his first rock band in the mid-’60s, to which he’d been welcomed by George Theiss of New Jersey band The Castiles. His death in 2018 helped Springsteen understand the life he had left clearer, the rocker explained before dedicating “Last Man Standing” to him. He performed the song on his acoustic guitar, backed by trumpeter Barry Danielian.

Other than that, and acknowledging the December show cancelations, Bruce Springsteen let the music do the talking.

“I hope we didn’t inconvenience you last year when we had to cancel, but I had a motherfucker of a bellyache,” he said of his peptic ulcer disease. “When I tried to sing, my belly ached!”

The second half of the show seemed to breeze by; stacking hit after massive hit tends to have that effect.

Springsteen lifted his guitar over his head before fan favorite “Backstreets,” as if offering it to God, before slicing it back over his shoulder. Then came “Because the Night,” with Nils Lofgren’s blistering solo that put an exclamation on the fist-pumper. That went right into “She’s the One” and “Wrecking Ball.” During the latter song, groups of people hugged and jumped in unison.

The momentum kept building through “The Rising,” “Badlands” and “Thunder Road,” which would have been a great show ender, but Bruce Springsteen still had two encores to go. The band kicked off the first with the tour debut of “Land of Hopes and Dreams,” which included a few lines of the Impressions’ “People Get Ready.” “Born to Run” and “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” started yet another round of dancing throughout Chase Center, while one fan passed an “I Girls” baseball cap to Stevie Van Zandt, who wore it for a bit and passed it to Springsteen. By the next song, “Bobby Jean,” it was pianist Roy Bittan’s turn to wear it.

The E Streeters kept right on going through “Dancing in the Dark,” during which Springsteen asked attendees to tell their friends about their time with his “heart-stopping,” “pants-dropping” and “fiber-taking” bandmates. He then walked through the general admission crowd, shaking hands along the way while singing “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” onto a bridge that separated the GA and seated section on the floor, getting even closer with his life-long followers. After the rest of the band departed the stage, he still wasn’t done, picking up his guitar one more time for “I’ll See You in My Dreams.”

It’s a testament to Springsteen and his massive songbook that he could remove songs like “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and “My City of Ruins,” both of which have been hailed as show highlights over the past week, and have it not matter one iota.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.