Bruce Springsteen, photo by Steven Rood

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band took the stage at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum again last night to wrap the first multi-night booking on their Land of Hope & Dreams Tour. So far on the outwardly political cross-country run, Springsteen and his storied ensemble – plus special guest Tom Morello – have locked in a carefully crafted setlist packed with the frontman’s most urgent and impactful songs, serving as a springboard for extended reflections on the state of American democracy and explicit calls to action. In this themed three-hour cycle, they’ve managed to carve out a space for occasional surprises, and the band did that again on Thursday by adding a pair of tour debuts.

Fans that came out for Springsteen’s first night in Los Angeles on Tuesday experienced a good bit of overlap at Thursday’s follow-up, which isn’t unusual at this stage in The Boss’s performing career; rather than showcasing his band’s adaptable chops and his vast catalogue, he’s recently prioritized focused storytelling, this time around remaining fixed on a resolute response to the violence and hypocricies of the Trump administration. All but two entries in the 27-song staging stuck to the routine they’d established in the three prior performances, interspersed with a few speeches from Springsteen.

Nine songs into the show, Springsteen led the band into the evening’s first pivot by swapping out “Out In The Street” for “Two Hearts,” a classic from The River, embellished with a section of Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston’s “It Takes Two.” Later, after a roaring set-closer of “Land of Hope and Dreams,” the group and Morello returned to the stage to launch their encore with “American Land” a Springsteen original penned for 2006’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions and inspired by Seeger’s “He Lies In The American Land”; the fiery update of folk tradition, reminiscent of the recent protest ballad “Streets of MInneapolis,” was performed for the first time ince 2017.

Springsteen’s Land of Hope and Dreams will take him to San Francisco’s Chase Center on April 13, followed by 14 further stops before a last stand at Washington, D.C.’s Nationals Park on May 25. Find tickets and more information on the run at brucespringsteen.net.