Springsteen returns to the Spectrum

"Is there anybody alive out there?" Bruce Springsteen asked the sold-out crowd toward the end of his show-opening "Badlands" at the Spectrum last night.

Not satisfied with the response, he rephrased the question: "Is anybody alive in Philadelphia?"

That did the trick. And from there, Springsteen and the 10-member E Street Band - his wife, Patti Scialfa, was MIA - were off to "Out in the Street," and headlong into their 31st show at Philadelphia's storied sports and concert arena, which is scheduled to be demolished this year.

"Is this a house of rock?" Springsteen asked during "Working on a Dream." "They're tearing it down, but we're going to build it back up tonight."

It was a night fans had eagerly awaited.

"Bruce always gets the energy up and gets everybody pumped up in Philly," Joel Schulnick, 32, of Queen Village, said earlier, waiting to enter the arena.

"This is the first big venue he played, and they're tearing it down," said Lynne Devine, 59, a Legal Services lawyer from Cherry Hill, who bought two tickets on impulse yesterday from StubHub for $480, for herself and her friend Jane Molt, 56. "So he should rock it tonight. He's like Walt Whitman, he's the poet of the working class."

"And we're working-class lawyers," Molt said.

David Africano, 49, a psychotherapist, drove from Norwalk, Conn. "My first Springsteen show was in December 1980, the night John Lennon was killed," he said. "And these are supposed to be the last Spectrum shows. I'm looking for closure."

Africano, who spent summers growing up in Long Branch, next to Asbury Park, said he had seen Springsteen "about 15 times," and was holding out hope for "Because the Night," "Backstreets" or "Incident on 57th Street" before starting his journey north on the New Jersey Turnpike.

"I would have to put Philly up there with Jersey for the most intense crowds and the best shows," he said. "They're better here than in New York."

"Tonight is all about celebrating 40 years of music at the Spectrum," said Darryl Eckert, 32, a real estate appraiser from Northeast Philadelphia.

"It's kind of amazing that he's outlasted the building. They're knocking it down, but Bruce is still going," he said, taking a pull on his beer as "For You" played on a parking-lot car stereo. "It's a shame, because it's such a better place to see a show than the Wachovia Center."

The first of two Springsteen shows on back-to-back nights at the Spectrum marked the first time that the Boss had played the South Philadelphia venue since 2005, when he performed two solo shows on his Devils & Dust tour. And it was his first time there with the E Street Band since he performed the night after his 50th birthday, on Sept. 24, 1999.

Throughout his career, the Spectrum, which opened in September 1967 (when it played host to the Quaker City Jazz Festival), has been a pivotal venue for Springsteen in the city that - thanks to DJs like the late Ed Sciaky and WXPN's David Dye, both then with WMMR - was the earliest to embrace him outside his central Jersey base.

Springsteen played his first-ever arena show at the Spectrum, when he opened for Chicago in June 1973. And he played marathon shows there on Dec. 8, 1980 - the night John Lennon was killed - and the following night.

The Dec. 9, 1980 show, in particular, plays a key role in the Springsteen legend.

Before opening that night with "Born to Run," Springsteen said: "It's a hard world that asks you to live with a lot of things that are unlivable. And it's hard to come out here and play tonight, but there's nothing else to do."

As many times as Springsteen has played the Spectrum - after tonight, it will be 32 - he comes in a distant second to the 53-and-counting shows logged by the Grateful Dead. Without the late Jerry Garcia, that band now performs as the Dead.

The Dead, which re-formed for an Obama fund-raising show in State College in October, is slotted to play the Spectrum on Friday and Saturday. Between Springsteen, the Dead, and the rising Southern rock band Kings of Leon, which played the arena last Saturday, the building will have hosted more than 80,000 rock fans in eight days.

No closing date has been given for the Spectrum. A retail and entertainment complex is planned for the site.

More high-profile names are expected to play the building before it makes way for the planned Philly Live entertainment complex. Yesterday, the California punk-pop band Green Day said it would perform there July 21.