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

SAN DIEGO — Back again, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band? Why the hurry to return to San Diego so soon after your last concert here?

Make that "so soon" as measured in dog years, since Monday's rousing, life-affirming concert at Pechanga Arena came 43 years after Springsteen and The E Street Band last performed here together. By coincidence, their 1981 concert was at the same venue (then known as the San Diego Sports Arena).

This inexplicably long gap was acknowledged by the New Jersey-bred rock legend as he and his 17-piece group began the elegiac "My City of Ruins," an emotional high point in a show bursting with high points. Their eighth selection of the night, "Ruins" came 38 minutes into the nearly three-hour marathon performance, which at one point saw Springsteen crouching to pet a fan's emotional-support bulldog — say what? — while singing "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" from a steel ramp on the arena's floor.

"Good evening, San Diego!" he said to the sold-out audience of 13,500, which responded with one of many sustained ovations. "It's great to be back in San Diego. It's been a while. I mean, where the f--- was I?"

Springsteen didn't dwell any further on the multi-decade gap between his concerts here with The E Street Band. Nor did he offer any insights about what finally prompted their return, after so many years.

But he and his group made up for lost time by performing with more than enough purpose, passion and precision to reaffirm the power of their music to elevate and entertain. And they made a special modification near the conclusion of their third of seven encore numbers, "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)."

Immediately after Springsteen sang "I know a pretty little place in Southern California, down San Diego way," he and his band stopped on a dime to let the crowd roar its approval. The song resumed 15 seconds later and a key point had unmistakably been made.

The best place for this Oscar winner, 20-time Grammy Award-winner and Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree to sing about coming down San Diego way is in San Diego.

Monday's set included 27 songs. They drew from Springsteen's 1973 debut album, "Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ," his 2022 album, "Only the Strong Survive," and various points in between.

The high-octane opening salvo of "Lonesome Day," "Prove It All Night," "No Surrender," the Celtic-flavored "Death to My Hometown" and "Ghosts" made it appear that he is fully recovered from the peptic ulcer disease that forced him to postpone 14 concerts last year, including his originally scheduled Dec. 2 show at Pechanga Arena.

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.