5 highlights of Bruce Springsteen's 3-hour nonstop Tulsa show that bordered on a religious experience

TULSA — "No retreat, baby, no surrender," Bruce Springsteen triumphantly growled in the opening moments of his three-hour, 27-song, nonstop show Tuesday night at Tulsa's BOK Center.

In the past month, "No Surrender," a defiant anthem from his juggernaut 1984 album "Born in the U.S.A.," has emerged as the most frequently chosen opening number for the New Jersey native's highly anticipated new tour with the le-gen-dary E Street Band.

Based on his relentlessly epic Oklahoma return engagement, the song served as a spot-on declaration of intent.

Expertly backed by his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band, Springsteen gave a concert that lived up to his reputation as a consummate live performer, one that bordered on a religious experience as he and The E Street Band, Horns and Choir played like the "Glory Days" (a hit that surprisingly didn't make the Tulsa set list) might come to an abrupt end at any moment.

From the surprising set list to the hottest solos, here are five highlights of Springsteen's 2023 sold-out Oklahoma tour stop:

1. For Springsteen, 'Tulsa Time' means all energy, no stops

"Good evening, Tulsa. Now that we're here, we're living on 'Tulsa Time,'" Springsteen declared with a grin as he and his rightly renowned cohorts emerged from beneath the enormous stage to immediately deafening cheers.

Apparently, The Boss' definition of "Tulsa Time" means no breaks, no stops and a seemingly inexhaustible energy and enthusiasm.

At 73, The Boss lived up to his famous hard-working, blue-collar ethos, performing with the intensity of a guy trying to earn overtime pay. By the time he took his final bows, he had visibly sweated through his light gray button-down shirt with the rolled-up sleeves.

Much has been made of the ticket prices on Springsteen's new tour — officially listed at $63.50 to $403.50, plus fees, for his Oklahoma stop, premium seats for some shows soared to $4,000 last year thanks to Ticketmaster's now-notorious dynamic pricing, but the buzz in the days leading up to the Tulsa show was all about truly cheap seats going for less than a beer on the secondary ticket sites — but the music icon seemed determined to give fans their money's worth, whatever they paid.

Pausing only the briefest moments for a speedy guitar switches and quick counts of "one, two, three, four," he set an unyielding pace for the night. Both his bandmates and his fans were eager to keep up, quickly powering through an opening salvo that ranged from his 1978 single "Prove It All Night" to the title track to his 2020 album "Letter to You."

2. The Boss seizes the spotlight with his showmanship and guitar skills

Don't let all the accolades he's earned as a songwriter fool you: Springsteen is a rock 'n' roll showman who seems to relish performing and interacting with his devoted audience, whose bellows of "Bruuuuuce" could be heard in the brief breaks between each song.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient frequently strutted down the catwalks to dance with and touch the outstretched hands of his fans, he threw numerous guitar picks into the audience, and the harmonica he used for the spirited opening of "The Promised Land" ended up getting tossed into the crowd, too.

His spoken-word zenith on "Backstreets" mesmerized the crowd, while his smiling jokes about "Johnny 99" needing "more cowbell" tickled the fervent fans.

Although his band includes guitar legends like Nils Lofgren and Stevie Van Zandt, The Boss showed off his own prowess with scorching solos on classics like "Candy's Room," "Kitty's Back" and "Badlands."

3. Rock icon captivates audience with vivid storytelling

Although Springsteen mostly let the music do the talking, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer did pause for a couple of storytelling moments.

"I wrote this when I was 22. Still don't know what it's about. That's good. You never quite figure the good songs out," he said to introduce the venerable one-time rarity “If I Was The Priest," which he rerecorded for his 2020 album before adding it to this year's tour set list.

He captivated the crowd with a moving yarn about his time with his first rock band: The Castiles.

"It was 1965, I was 15, and it was a summer afternoon when I heard a knock on my door. It was buddy George Theiss, who went to school with me and he was dating my sister. ... He said that she told him that I played some guitar — I'd only been playing about six months, but he invited me to audition for his band," Springsteen recalled.

"I embarked on the greatest adventure of my young life: I joined my first real rock 'n' roll band. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And we last for three years — that's incredible for teenagers. ... It was an explosive time in American history, an amazing period to be in a rock band — and we named ourselves after a bottle of shampoo. Names were a little less important at the time."

He said 50 years later, on another sunny day, he visited Theiss on his deathbed. After his old bandmate's death, Springsteen penned the emotional ode "Last Man Standing," which he performed acoustic in Tulsa with just a mournful trumpet solo from Barry Danielian to punctuate the lovingly somber mood.

"It's just about the job we choose before we even know to call it 'work,' it's about the passions we follow as children. And at 15, it's all tomorrows, it's all 'hellos,' and later on, it's a lot more 'goodbyes.' But it makes you realize how important living every moment is," Springsteen told the appreciative audience.

4. The E Street Band shows their stuff in Tulsa concert

It isn't lost on The Boss that his E Street Band mates are legends in their own right, and Danielian wasn't the only member of Springsteen's 15-strong backing ensemble that seized the spotlight to the crowd's delight on Tuesday night.

Naturally, "The E Street Shuffle" gave the entire group a chance to show out, especially the E Street Horns and drummer extraordinaire "Mighty" Max Weinberg, who engaged in a playful duel with backup percussionist Anthony Almonte. The E Street Choir, piano man Roy Bittan and superstar saxophone player Jake Clemons (nephew of the late, great E Street sax man Clarence Clemons) lit up the 1980s anthem "Darlington County" like the Fourth of July.

Although Springsteen's wife and E Street Band singer/guitarist Patti Scialfa was absent from the Tulsa show, backup vocalist Curtis King proved a fine duet partner with his sweet soul singing with The Boss on their rendition of the Commodores' classic "Nightshift," from Springsteen's 2022 covers album "Only the Strong Survive."

Any moment when Springsteen and Van Zandt share the microphone and swap guitar highlights is sure to bring the smiles.

But Lofgren threatened to steal the whole show with his whirling dervish solo on Springsteen's gravelly rendition of "Because the Night," the beloved ballad The Boss co-wrote with Patti Smith.

5. Lights go up for lights-out encore to cap career-spanning set

True to form, Springsteen and his fellow rockers hardly hesitated before launching into their seven-song encore. The change from main set to follow-up was marked by the house lights coming on, the better for the band to see the still-energetic audience as they stormed through the hits "Thunder Road" and "Born to Run" as well as the frisky concert staple "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)."

Almost two hours and 45 minutes into the show, it turned out practically no one in the crowd was too tired to wave their fists, shake their booties and wailing along with "Dancing in the Dark" or to give the exceptional band its due on their signature song "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out."

Since the recently expanded trek launched Feb. 1 in Tampa, Florida, Springsteen and Company have been tweaking the career-spanning set list every show, so Oklahoma fans were treated to the apparent tour debut of the buoyant ballad "Bobby Jean" from 1984's "Born in the U.S.A.," while smashes like that title track and "Glory Days" were left out. (I was hoping I might hear my personal favorite, the 1987 hit "Brilliant Disguise," which made it onto the Tampa set list, but, alas, it was not to be.)

The Boss sent the crowd home with a beautiful solo acoustic benediction "I'll See You in My Dreams." Considering how much energy everyone put into the almost three-hour event, I'm betting everyone slept pretty well.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Tulsa 2023 set list

• "No Surrender"

• "Ghosts"

• "Prove It All Night"

• "Letter to You"

• "The Promised Land"

• "Out in the Street"

• "Candy's Room"

• "Kitty's Back"

• "Nightshift" (Commodores cover)

• "If I Was the Priest"

• "The E Street Shuffle"

• "Darlington County"

• "Johnny 99"

• "Last Man Standing"

• "Backstreets"

• "Because the Night"

• "She's the One"

• "Wrecking Ball"

• "The Rising"

• "Badlands"

• Encore:

• "Thunder Road"

• "Born to Run"

• "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)"

• "Bobby Jean"

• "Dancing in the Dark"

• "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"

• "I'll See You in My Dreams"

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: See the Bruce Springsteen 2023 tour setlist, and Tulsa highlights