By Darrell Laurant

Published: May 3, 2008

Don’t run back inside

— “Thunder Road,” Bruce Springsteen

GREENSBORO, N.C. — There was definitely magic in the night on Monday, as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band rocked the Greensboro Coliseum to its rafters.

And yes, there were probably those in the remarkably diverse audience who walked in scared, like Mary in “Thunder Road,” knowing that their hero and most of his fellow musicians weren’t, indeed, “that young anymore.”

They might have been pondering the strange side trips Springsteen has taken in recent years, from his Woody Guthrie fascination to an album featuring his take on folk songs that I remember singing in third grade. Moreover, the Boss was getting more and more political.

Would he ultimately morph into John Prine or Arlo? Become a regular on Sesame Street? Run for president (or maybe governor of New Jersey)?

Then there was the recent death of Danny Federici, the E Street Band’s longtime keyboard player and a Springsteen collaborator for 40 years. Would we see a subdued, melancholy Bruce?

As it turned out, only for about three minutes. As the house lights went down, Springsteen walked out onto a darkened stage alone and sang an acoustic version of “Blood Brothers” as a video montage honoring Federici flickered on an overhead screen.

Having gotten that out of the way, Springsteen then joined his surviving bandmates — drummer Max Weinberg, bassist Garry Tallent, guitarists Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren, pianist Roy Bittan, violinist Suzie Tyrell and keyboardist Charles Giordano (Federici’s replacement) in crashing through four straight high-energy songs — “Roulette” (off “Tracks,” played for the first time on the current tour), “Don’t Look Back,” “Radio Nowhere,” “Out in the Street” and “Promised Land.”

A short, cooling-off duet on “Magic” followed, Suzie Tyrell sliding over to share a mike with Bruce, and then it was back to soaring guitars and Weinberg’s rolling thunder, Springsteen and Van Zandt ripping off a guitar duet to finish “Gypsy Biker.”

At any given concert, Springsteen fans are always doomed to disappointment — given his vast catalogue of material, you know that he isn’t going to play most of your favorites. On the other hand, chances are you’ll hear at least one song special to you.

I used to go to a lot of concerts, but ticket prices have escalated at a pace that leaves even gas prices behind. Still, if there is any performer I would say gives audiences their money’s worth — whatever you put down to see him — it’s Springsteen.

He’ll be 60 years old next year, and some of his bandmates are even older. And yet he never stopped moving in Greensboro, leaping down off the stage to the broad ledge next to the audience, galloping up on the rear riser to delight the poor souls with back-of-the-stage tickets, waving his guitar like an avenging sword.

The band was dressed all in black, and I’m not sure if that was a tribute to Federici or simply a fashion statement. But the empty chair set out next to where Clemons stood with his sax turned out to be not a “missing man” symbol but a place for Clarence to rest from time to time.

More than most high-profile performers, Springsteen always presents himself as a member of the E Street Band, rather than relegating his fellow musicians to cameo roles. And rightly so, because he has never achieved the same following without them.

“I’m goin’ down to the well tonight,” he sings on “Glory Days,” one of his classic early hits, “and I’m gonna drink ‘till I get my fill.”

He may wander off into other genres of music, but “the well,” to Bruce Springsteen, is always rock and roll, the E Street Band, and the adulation of fist-pumping crowds that sway on their feet throughout a show. No doubt that direct connection to mass energy helped sustain him after Federici died of cancer in mid-April.

Midway through his Greensboro performance, Springsteen told a story about how his late bandmate liked to “lift” things in the early days — like the speakers from a nightclub juke box. Then he segued into “It’s Hard to be a Saint in the City.”

Classic Springsteen, from a man who has mastered and refined the trick of cloaking sensitivity and compassion behind hard-edged music and lyrics.

It’s probably hard to be Bruce Springsteen, too, but on this particular night, he pulled it off. Beautifully.

Best of all, he played “Born to Run.”