Last year, Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band announced massive tours of both Europe and North America. Tickets were expensive — up to $5,000 in some cases — and Springsteen himself addressed the complaints that followed: “I’m going, ‘Hey, why shouldn’t that money go to the guys that are going to be up there sweating three hours a night for it?'” The whole ticket-pricing saga has been its own story, but there are the prices, and then there’s the actual experience of seeing Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band live. However much the tickets cost, that show is still a beautiful thing.

Last night, Springsteen and his band kicked off their tour at Tampa’s Amalie Arena. Based on all available evidence, the Springsteen live show is still a stirring spectacle. Springsteen and his band played 28 songs, and that setlist included a couple of firsts. In 2020, Springsteen and the E Street Band released their album Letter To You. Springsteen has played a bunch of Letter To You songs live in one capacity or another, but two of them got their live debuts in Tampa last night. First, in the middle of the set, Springsteen did an acoustic version of “Last Man Standing,” a song he’s never played live before. Here’s a fan-made video:

And here’s Springsteen and the band debuting “Burnin’ Train” at the beginning of their encores:

Last night’s show also featured tons of hits: “No Surrender,” “Prove It All Night,” “Out In The Street,” “Candy’s Room,” “Brilliant Disguise,” “Backstreets,” “Badlands,” “Born To Run,” “Rosalita,” “Dancing In The Dark.” Here’s the band covering “Because The Night,” the 1978 Patti Smith hit that Springsteen co-wrote, and transitioning straight into a gorgeous version of “She’s The One”:

And here’s the night’s closing one-two punch, a full-band take on “10th Avenue Freeze-Out,” with Springsteen running out in the crowd and jumping up on dividers, followed by a solo-acoustic version of “I’ll See You In My Dreams”:

And here’s last night’s setlist, via Setlist.fm:

01 “No Surrender”
02 “Ghosts”
03 “Prove It All Night”
04 “Letter To You”
05 “The Promised Land”
06 “Out In The Street”
07 “Candy’s Room”
08 “Kitty’s Back”
09 “Brilliant Disguise”
10 “Nightshift” (Commodores cover)
11 “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)” (Ben E. King cover)
12 “The E Street Shuffle”
13 “Johnny 99”
14 “Last Man Standing” (acoustic)
15 “House Of A Thousand Guitars”
16 “Backstreets”
17 “Because The Night” (Patti Smith cover)
18 “She’s The One”
19 “Wrecking Ball”
20 “The Rising”
21 “Badlands”
//////
22 “Burnin’ Train”
23 “Born To Run”
24 “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”
25 “Glory Days”
26 “Dancing In The Dark”
27 “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”
28 “I’ll See You in My Dreams” (solo)

Springsteen doesn’t keep the same setlist from show to show, but these motherfuckers are coming to play.