He is now a grizzled 58-year-old with a receding hairline and tells jokes about his teenaged kids but Bruce Springsteen proved it all night for the sell-out crowd at GM Place Monday.

Backed by the classic eight-piece E Street Band (with Soozie Tyrell and Charles Giordano from the Seeger Sessions standing in for stay-at-home mom Patty Scialfa and in-remission cancer patient Danny Federici), it was a marathon two and a half hour show that included touchstones from his 35 year recording career, while focusing on seven new tracks from his latest "Magic" release.

Springsteen and band kept the intensity level up throughout, often not even pausing between songs. His banter was brief when it did come, as when he observed that this November's elections mean the U.S. "will end eight years of misery."

The 25-song set list meant each tune averaged about six minutes, and he often puts more words into one song than other artists put into an entire album.

And some of the earlier '70s faves such as "Rosalita (Come out tonight)" and "Born to Run" were full-blown miniature operas that swept up the crowd with their "wall of sound" crescendos.

The audience reacted ecstatically by dancing in the dark and singing along to the big hits and the encore finale, the Irish-influenced "American Land" with its bittersweet promise of a better life in America.

NOTES:

Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band

March 31 2008 at GM Place, Vancouver

Band: Nils Lofgren (screaming guitars), Roy Bittan (keys), Clarence Clemons (sax), Garry Tallent (bass), Stevie Van Zandt (guitars, mandolin), Max Weinberg (drums), Soozie Tyrell (violin, guitar, vox), Charles Giordano (keys - in place of Danny Federici who's recovering from melanoma treatments)

SET LIST

1 Atlantic City (from Nebraska)

2 Radio Nowhere (from Magic)

3 No Surrender (from Born in the USA)

4 Lonesome Day (from The Rising)

5 Gypsy Biker (from Magic)

6 Magic (from Magic)

7 Trapped (from The Essential, written by Jimmy Cliff)

8 Johnny 99 (from Nebraska)

9 Because the Night (from The Essential, co-written with Patti Smith)

10 She's the One (from Born to Run)

11 Living in the Future (from Magic)

12 Promised Land (from Darkness on the Edge of Town)

13 Waiting on a Sunny Day (from The Rising)

14 None But the Brave (from The Essential - Born in the USA outtake)

15 The River (from The River)

16 Devil's Arcade (from Magic)

17 The Rising (from The Rising)

18 Last to Die (from Magic)

19 Long Walk Home (from Magic)

20 Badlands (from Darkness on the Edge of Town)

ENCORES:

21 Tenth Avenue Freeze-out (from Born to Run)

22 Rosalita "come out tonight" (from The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle)

23 Born to Run (from Born to Run)

24 Dancing in the Dark (from Born in the USA)

25 American Land (from Seeger Sessions)