Back on Thunder Road

“I’m so glad to be here in your beautiful city,” a playful Bruce Springsteen told 22,000 cheering fans with a mock evangelist’s fervor as he kicked off his reunion tour with the E Street Band over the weekend.

“But I want you to know that we’re not here for a casual visit. . . . We’re here to rededicate you to the power, the passion, the mystery and the ministry of ROCK ‘N’ ROLL! I can’t promise you life everlastin’, but I can promise you life right now. . . .”

It was classic Springsteen, entertaining yet purposeful, and the key moments of his concerts Friday and Sunday at the sold-out Palau Sant Jordi arena carried the same hallmarks.

In his first formal shows in a decade with the band, Springsteen was still trying to do what he’s always done: make each show feel like the ultimate rock experience.

In the three-hour nonstop shows, he did many of his signature hits, including “Born to Run” and “Thunder Road,” but sidestepped the more pop-oriented hits, including “Dancing in the Dark” and “Hungry Heart,” while showcasing lesser-known tunes that add character and depth to his body of work.

Yes, Springsteen fans everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief.

In a rock world filled with distasteful reunion tours, here’s one that doesn’t feel like a final payday, but the start of a shining new chapter. There were some rough spots, especially on opening night, but the high points were as rich and inspiring as the legendary Springsteen shows of the past.

“This tour is about rededication, rebirth,” a jubilant Springsteen said in an interview late Sunday. “The only way we wanted to do this was to make everything feel current . . . to pull all the music into the present to make the emotion true to right now.”

“It’s not about when a song was written or when it was released . . . Roy Orbison, until the day he died, sang every one of those songs like he wrote it yesterday. That’s how it felt to me tonight.”

Even for true believers, there had been many reasons to worry. Springsteen faced considerable embarrassment if this tour, which comes seven years after an outing with another band that left much of his audience cold, looked like a desperate attempt to recapture the group’s glory days.

Springsteen sent out his anti-nostalgia message with his choice of opening numbers both nights here. Confounding everyone who was trying to predict which of his classics would open Friday’s show, Springsteen went with “My Love Will Not Let You Down,” an upbeat selection from “Tracks,” the rarities boxed set released last fall to lukewarm commercial response.

The song not only gave the start of the show the energy it needed, but it also underlined the theme that would emerge in the concert--the values and comfort of community and commitment.

In that same adventurous spirit, Springsteen and the band generally reworked old songs and surrounded them with like-minded tunes to give them added dimension. In one powerful segment, Springsteen wove together three songs from separate albums to present looks at socioeconomic divisions in the United States from a blue-collar perspective.

“Mansion on the Hill,” whose country undercurrents were accented by Nils Lofgren’s steel guitar touches, tells of a poor youngster who hides in a cornfield and stares enviously at the goings-on behind the iron gates of a rich man’s house.

“The River,” whose mood was darkened to eliminate much of the sing-along invitation of the album version, then told of a young couple struggling after the husband’s layoff by a construction company.

The suite was finished by “Youngstown,” whose folk arrangement on the “Ghost of Tom Joad” album gave way to a light rock backing, conveying the despair of an entire town being discarded as obsolete by shifting labor demands.

The most chilling number came toward the end of the show when Springsteen redesigned “If I Should Fall Behind” so that four band members--Lofgren, guitarist Steven Van Zandt, saxophonist Clarence Clemons and backup singer Patti Scialfa--all took the microphone for a few lines of the song, which is about devotion.

Springsteen closed both nights with “Land of Hopes and Dreams,” a powerful, spiritually tinged new song.

With the Friday concert defining the tour concept, Sunday’s show was more relaxed and free-flowing, with Springsteen deviating from the set list at various points. The evening opened with “Rendezvous,” a more upbeat song from the “Tracks” set.

The biggest surprise was a dramatically reworked, stripped-down version of “Born in the U.S.A.,” the song about the lingering wounds of the Vietnam War that was widely misinterpreted because of the booming, anthem-like arrangement on the 1984 hit. He coupled it with “Brothers Under the Bridge,” a heartbreaking companion piece also from “Tracks.”

There were some wasted moments, but for the most part the tour got off to a stirring start, with the band playing so well--highlighted by Max Weinberg’s often explosive drumming--that it was hard to believe they had been apart for 10 years.

Second Show: ‘It Was Wild Out There’

Springsteen at 49 isn’t as energetic as he once was, but he still sings with such force that you wonder how he avoids blowing his vocal cords. In returning to touring, Springsteen didn’t opt for theatrical props. His bare stage left all the focus on the music.

“It was wild out there tonight,” Springsteen said after Sunday’s concert, referring to the shifts in the set list. “We changed it all around--on the second night of the tour after guys hadn’t played together for 10 years.”

Springsteen, who broke ties with the band in 1989 so he could explore other musical directions, said he began thinking in earnest about a reunion a year ago after he finished his “Ghost of Tom Joad” solo acoustic tour.

“I wrote some acoustic songs in that same mode,” he said, “and then also some electric songs that felt right for the band. It was something about the time. . . . It’s the turn of the century, and I started thinking of where I want to be on that night. The answer is I want to be with the people I built my life around. I want to be with them on this stage doing this thing. It’s one of the greatest things I can do.”It’s the turn of the century, and I started thinking of where I want to be on that night. The answer is I want to be with the people I built my life around. I want to be with them on this stage doing this thing. It’s one of the greatest things I can do.”

Springsteen phoned the band members to ask if they would give it another try. They began rehearsing about two months ago in New Jersey. Springsteen said he has songs for a new album that he’d like to start recording in the fall between legs of the U.S. tour.

Though Springsteen still hasn’t signed off on the itinerary, the U.S. tour is scheduled to run from mid-July through September, though sources now say there is a good chance it will be extended through October so he can be the first act to play the new Staples Center arena in Los Angeles.

“What I learned in rehearsals is that this is a different version of the band than people have seen in the past,” he said. “The band has enormous depth that we haven’t even explored yet. People can all sing. . . . Great voices. Guys can play other instruments.”

But he doesn’t regret breaking away from the band in 1989.

“I think it was necessary,” Springsteen said. “I had to take a break in order to get to this point. If I hadn’t we probably wouldn’t be here today. I think we all had to get away so we could come back and rededicate ourselves on what we wanted to do.”

Any concerns about the music holding up after all these years?

“No, I always had faith in the music,” he said. “From when I was a young man I wrote to encompass the adult world, problems of real life, everyday experiences, and I trusted that music would hold up for years.

“When I wrote ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town,’ for instance, I could see myself singing it years down the road. The key in all of this is bringing the song into the present so it feels real today. I’m thankful because we’re blessed with great fans. They want us to change and to grow. That’s a great strength we have in going out on stage every night. They’re not saying let’s go back, but let’s go somewhere new.”