Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band came back down San Diego way (finally!) and rocked up a storm

Springsteen performed with impressive power and unmistakable conviction throughout, just months after his illness made him wonder if he'd ever be able to sing again. By the midpoint of Monday's concert, his light blue shirt had turned dark blue from perspiration. At 74-going-on-34, he looked and sounded like a musician on an age-defying mission.

It was the third date on his now-resumed tour with The E Street Band, which performed with a winning combination of carefully calibrated fire and finesse throughout. Anchored by drummer Max Weinberg — who drove the music with vigor but knew exactly when to lay back — this was a band in the best sense of the word, a well-drilled ensemble that skillfully served the songs at hand.

Those songs included such favorites as "The Promised Land," "Because the Night," "Badlands," the Bo Diddley-inspired "She's the One," "Born to Run" and "Thunder Road," each delivered with fist-pumping intensity. But there were also some welcome surprises, among them the first performances on this tour of "Bobby Jean" and the gospel-music-inspired "Last Man Standing."

"We are here to wake you, to shake you, to take you to higher ground," Springsteen vowed, assuming the rock 'n' roll preacher persona he long ago honed into an art form. "I plan on sending you home with your feet hurting, your hands hurting and your sexual organs stimulated."

Monday also included the first performance since 2019 of E Street Band favorite "Detroit Medley," which found Springsteen and company rocking out on such classic songs as the Shorty Long-penned Mitch Ryder hit "Detroit Medley" and the rollicking Ma Rainey blues standard "See See Rider." The aforementioned "My City of Ruins" was performed for the first time since 2017, but sounded fresh and vital.

During a brassy, bouncy retooling of "Dancing in the Dark," Springsteen yelled out "San Diego!" and the crowd roared its affirmation. He did so five more times — with the crowd roaring back each time — but not 43 times, which would have been a precise acknowledgment of exactly how many years had passed since he and The E Street Band last performed here. But who's counting?

Either way, Springsteen's parting words to the audience after his concert-closing solo acoustic ballad, "I'll See You in My Dreams," were cause for hope.

"We'll be back," he said.

Let's hold him to it.