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Bruce Springsteen<\/a> began Saturday night with a speech. <\/p>\n Ever since President Donald Trump<\/a> was elected for the second time, Springsteen has taken the extraordinary step of not letting his music speak for itself at the start of his shows.<\/p>\n Instead, when he stepped on stage at 7:30 p.m. sharp at the Xfinity Mobile Arena in South Philadelphia<\/a> for the final date of his \u201cLand of Hope and Dreams American Tour,\u201d the Boss came out swinging.<\/p>\n Labeling the Trump administration \u201ccorrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless, and treasonous,\u201d he asked his audience to join him in embracing a communal, inclusive version of America that he believes runs counter to the president\u2019s. <\/p>\n (The president has frequently hit back at Springsteen<\/a>, calling him \u201cdumb as a rock\u201d and \u201cnot a talented guy,\u201d among other things.)<\/p>\n Immediately getting down to business in sleeves-rolled-up preacher mode on Saturday, the 76-year-old Jersey rocker invited the sold-out crowd to stand with him.<\/p>\n He asked the true believers to join him and the E Street Band \u201cin choosing hope over fear, democracy over authoritarianism, the rule of law over lawlessness, ethics over unbridled corruption, resistance over complacency, truth over lies, unity over division and peace over \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n And with that, the band emphatically slammed into \u201cWar,\u201d Edwin Starr\u2019s 1970 anti-war hit. It comprised the core unit of longtime Springsteen compadres like guitarist Steve Van Zandt<\/a>, drummer Max Weinberg, pianist Roy Bittan, and bassist Garry Tallent along with a five-member horn section, four backup singers, percussionist Anthony Almonte, and guest guitarist Tom Morello. <\/p>\n \u201cWar\u201d wasn\u2019t the only cover that the E Streeters included in a thrilling, sharply-focused marathon that played like an unabashedly partisan spirit-lifting revival meeting \u2014 and sounded astoundingly good in a cavernous sports arena \u2014 as the band roared through a standard Springsteen-length 3 hour show that included 27 songs and several spoken interludes.<\/p>\n Early on, Springsteen drew strength from British rebel rockers the Clash, taking turns on vocals with Morello on \u201cClampdown,\u201d the anti-fascist salvo from the band\u2019s 1979 album London Calling that exhorts listeners to \u201cLet fury have the hour, anger can be power. Do you know that you can use it?\u201d<\/p>\n Later, a five-song encore began with a shout-out to the Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition<\/a> as a prelude to Springsteen\u2019s own careening Celtic-Appalachian folk song \u201cAmerican Land\u201d (which celebrates \u201cthe hands that built the country we\u2019re always trying to keep down\u201d) and ended with Bob Dylan\u2019s 1964 \u201cChimes of Freedom.\u201d <\/p>\n With that, Springsteen explicitly connected his current tour to the socially conscious folk rock movement of the \u201960s<\/a> that has always animated his work. And he reached back farther with a recording of Woody Guthrie singing \u201cThis Land Is Your Land,\u201d which played as exit music after Springsteen urged his faithful to \u201cstay hard, stay hungry, stay alive. And stay involved.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump supporters and critics on the right often bash Springsteen for his left-leaning politics, or mock him on social media with meant-to-be-cutting comments such as claiming he looks like Ellen DeGeneres<\/a>. (Wow, sick burn!) <\/p>\n Longtime Springsteen followers frequently point out that he has been a political artist for decades<\/a>, reaching back to the 1979 No Nukes concerts or the widely misconstrued, massively popular 1984 \u201cBorn in the U.S.A.,\u201d which you can tell is not a purely patriotic flag waver if you pay attention. <\/p>\n But Springsteen\u2019s right-wing critics are right about at least one thing: He never has been this political before. <\/p>\n Sure, he has plenty of songs that have leaned into topicality over the years. One example is \u201cThe Ghost of Tom Joad,\u201d the title song to his 1995 album. It draws from John Ford\u2019s 1940 movie adaptation of John Steinbeck\u2019s The Grapes of Wrath, and promises that \u201cwhere there\u2019s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air, look for me, Mom, I\u2019ll be there.\u201d<\/p>\n On Saturday, Springsteen and band did an incendiary take of the song, keyed by the \u201chow-does-he-do-that?\u201d guitar histrionics of Morello, who previously covered the song with his rap-rock band Rage Against the Machine. <\/p>\n Another example is \u201cAmerican Skin (41 Shots),\u201d the 1999 song about the fatal shooting of unarmed street vendor Amadou Diallo in New York by plainclothes police officers. It\u2019s one of Springsteen\u2019s most deftly turned, deeply empathetic songs, which examines racial injustice and division from a humanist point of view. <\/p>\n On Saturday, it was delivered \u2014 to a crowd that was overwhelmingly white \u2014 in a graceful version whose central lyric \u201cYou can get killed just for living in your American skin\u201d also resonates with the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE agents. Their deaths moved to Springsteen to write the seething broadside \u201cStreets of Minneapolis,\u201d<\/a> earlier this year. That song was also a show highlight. <\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Bruce Springsteen\u2019s last Philly show was elegiac. This time, it\u2019ll be a \u2018teeth-kicking\u2019 protest.<\/a><\/p>\n But besides that explicitly political material, what was fascinating about Springsteen\u2019s set during this tour is how easily the sturdy, durable songs that have been staples of his repertoire for decades meshed with the tour\u2019s \u201cNo Kings\u201d theme. <\/p>\n The powerless protagonist who feels \u201cso weak I just wanna explode\u201d in \u201cPromised Land\u201d speaks to a moment in an embattled America where many concerned citizens are unsure how to react to what they see as \u201cthe lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted.\u201d <\/p>\n The same goes for rousing fist pumpers like \u201cBadlands\u201d that look skyward in hopes of finding belief \u201cin the faith that can save me,\u201d as well as gospel-leaning rousers like \u201cLand of Hope and Dreams\u201d itself and \u201cMy City of Ruins.\u201d <\/p>\n The latter was originally written for a crumbling Asbury Park, then worked as a 9\/11 memorial on The Rising, and is now an inspirational anthem about rebuilding democratic institutions, with a coda that quotes Curtis Mayfield\u2019s \u201cPeople Get Ready.\u201d <\/p>\n And of course, Springsteen has plenty of songs about putting up a fight, with neither retreat nor surrender as an option. Even \u201cWrecking Ball,\u201d an ode to the demolished New York Giants\u2019 football stadium which was met by good-natured booing, is about refusing to be bullied or back down. <\/p>\n \u201cGo ahead and take your best shot, let me see what you\u2019ve got: Bring on your wrecking ball!\u201d<\/p>\n All this might sound deathly serious. But was the show also a redemptive rock and roll party? It was. <\/p>\n The set loosened up with \u201cTwo Hearts,\u201d a duet with Van Zandt that ended with a bit of Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston\u2019s \u201cIt Takes Two\u201d and \u201cHungry Heart.\u201d <\/p>\n The band was cohesive and frequently on fire, with Lofgren blazing away on \u201cYoungstown\u201d and Van Zandt cutting loose on \u201cMurder Incorporated.\u201d Much fun was had in \u201cBorn To Run,\u201d \u201cDancing in the Dark,\u201d and \u201cTenth Avenue Freeze-Out.\u201d <\/p>\n Before that last song, the tireless septuagenarian bandleader was particularly animated. He shouted out \u201cPHILLY!\u201d five times and told the crowd to \u201cGo home tonight, get on your cell phone, pull on your pajamas, call up all your neighbors, and tell them you\u2019ve just witnessed the heart-stoppin\u2019, pants-droppin\u2019, earth-shaking, hard-rockin\u2019, booty-shaking, earth-shaking, love-making, Viagra-taking, history-making, legendary E Street Band!\u201d<\/p>\n In his closing remarks, he was more thoughtful about what Philadelphia has meant to him <\/a>since it became a popular stronghold for him early in his career.<\/p>\n \u201cPhilly, you kill me,\u201d he said and thanked the band, his manager Jon Landau and wife Patti Scialfa (who was not present for this show), and others.<\/p>\n