Even coming off a run of three amazing shows in Virginia Beach and Philadelphia, I had high expectations for Pittsburgh–even higher than for the previous shows, in fact.

For one thing, this was one last return to an arena on a tour leg that was predominantly stadium-based, and I always prefer the intimacy of an arena (hey, it’s all about the comparison) to a cavernous stadium.

For another, this was to be the penultimate show of the tour, and I’d had some great experiences with second-to-last shows eclipsing the final closer (see St. Louis vs. Kansas City in 2008).

And finally, but most significantly, this was the first show Bruce had scheduled for September 11th since long before the 2001 terrorist attacks–and that fact wasn’t lost on any of us in attendance, and we knew it wouldn’t be lost on Bruce either. We expected a show that recognized and honored the significance of the date.

We got one.

Two years on, the Pittsburgh 9/11 show remains one of my favorite shows ever. Here’s why:

1) The story

Bruce typically constructs his setlists to convey a message or at least a theme, but this tour has been lacking in that. At first, it was because the complete River album pretty much engulfed the show, overpowering anything else he appended on to it. Over the summer, it became a greatest hits show, and recently it had become a career retrospective.

But September 11th saw the return of the storyteller, with a carefully constructed set that sent a clear message without Bruce ever needing to explicitly state it. The show opened with the same epic salute to NYC that he’d been performing for almost the entire leg of the tour, but with deeper meaning on this date.

“New York City Serenade” was followed by four tracks from The Rising that carried the listener “Into the Fire” on 9/11, though the grief of the days that followed (“Lonesome Day” and “You’re Missing“), and finally to “Mary’s Place,” a cathartic wake masquerading as a party. For a while, we were transported back to 2002’s Rising Tour, and all of these songs were new again, full of power and meaning.

When Bruce finally set The Rising aside (only for a bit–he’d return to it later), it was to play “Darkness on the Edge of Town” a song of defiance and perseverance–another deliberate message. The middle of the show was still the chronological journey of recent shows, but the song selection trended darker, angrier: “Streets of Fire” and “Downbound Train” made rare appearances.

Finally, the set wrapped with “My City of Ruins,” “The Rising,” and “Badlands“–a triple-shot of resilience, determination, and defiance. This was a show that was as emotionally exhausting as it was physically.

2) The setting

I’d just seen five stadium shows in a little over two weeks, and stepping back into an arena again felt… intimate. The Consol Center is small by arena standards; the stage was small, the pit shallow, and for most of the show Bruce was just a few feet in front of us–and the rest of the band always clearly in view. Add to that: this is where the tour began (I was there for that one as well, as were a lot of my pit-mates), and it felt like a reunion.

3) The guest-star

Joe Grushecky is a long-time favorite of mine, and I’d never been able to catch him live. Getting him for even one song (“Light of Day“) was a treat.

4) The resonance

As I alluded above, Bruce never once directly addressed the significance of date. He didn’t need to.

He’s played “The Rising” at every show since he debuted it in 2002. I’ve seen him perform it more times than even “Born to Run.” But it never felt as fresh and urgent as it did that night. And “My City of Ruins…” I’ve seen photos that capture the visual of an arena full of uplifted beacons, but nothing can capture the deafening communal roar of the “Rise Up!” chorus that night.

5) The encore

At the end of the main set, someone in the front of the pit handed Bruce a pocket copy of the US Constitution, with a cover that read “F*** Trump!” Bruce let the invective pass without comment, but he scrapped the setlisted “Secret Garden” (which it seems I am destined never to hear, since he keeps setlisting it at my shows and then not playing it) and instead picked up an acoustic guitar, strummed a few chords to figure out his way forward, and then proceeded to play an absolutely gorgeous version of “Long Walk Home,” a song I hadn’t heard live in about seven years, and never solo like that.

Bruce wrote “Long Walk Home” the night that the Democrats retook Congress in 2006. He literally came on stage the next night and performed this new song dashed out overnight while on tour, and it remains among his finest work. On its surface, the song is about revisiting your childhood home and discovering how things have declined and decayed over the years. But underneath, it’s an aching recognition of just how far down a terrible road our country has gone, and how it was going to be a lot harder and take a lot more than a single election to get back “home.”

Bruce has a songwriting technique that he relies on frequently: in any given song, there’s typically one or two lines that essentially *is* the song–the rest of the lyrics are just color. In this song, it’s the verse:

Son, we’re lucky in this town, It’s a beautiful place to be born

It just wraps its arms around you, nobody crowds you and nobody goes it alone

That flag flyin’ over the courthouse means certain things are set in stone:

Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t

If there was any song to leave us with on a September 11th remembrance, that was the one.

Walking into the arena that night, I thought this would be my second-to-last show of the tour. I had a good lower ticket for the tour finale up in Boston, and I fully intended to be there.

But walking out of the arena after that show, I knew I was done for this tour. I couldn’t imagine the Gillette Stadium show topping this show in setlist, intensity, or community, and I liked the symmetry of ending the tour where I began it. So I did something I’ve never done before: I passed on a Springsteen show I already had a ticket, at peace with the notion that it might be my last E Street Band show ever. (We never know what the future holds.)

Pittsburgh 9/11 remains my last E Street Band show to date and one of my favorite concert experiences ever.