CLEVELAND — Nearly every show on Bruce Springsteen’s 2023 tour so far has started with the song “No Surrender.”

I’m guessing he does this every show, but Wednesday at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, he added the word “Tonight” at the beginning of the line, “I’m ready to grow young again,” and seemed to emphasize that sentence.

It sounded like a declaration, a statement of purpose. That doesn’t mean the 73-year-old performer simply is interested in trying to recapture a little of those glory days — Springsteen and the 17 musicians and singers accompanying him proved more than capable of doing that.

But the setlist is filled with songs of a man looking back, reflecting on his life, and it may be difficult for longtime fans not to do the same. The second song was the rousing “Ghosts” (from 2020’s “Letter to You” album), and the spirits of the past reverberate through a 27-song show that was about 12 minutes shy of the three-hour mark.

The centerpiece of the main set is “Last Man Standing,” followed by “Backstreets.”

Springsteen was inspired to write the former after the death of his Castiles’ bandmate George Theiss in 2018, leaving Springsteen the only one still alive from his first band. He talked about Theiss inviting him to join the band before performing the song solo acoustic (except for a trumpet solo by Barry Danielian).

When someone asks me, “What is your favorite Springsteen song?,” I don’t hesitate to answer “Backstreets,” and the version that cemented its place at the top of my list is the 1978 Winterland bootleg album recorded in San Francisco, an epic version that accentuates the lyrics as a song about lost love and betrayal.

In the context of Wednesday’s show and juxtaposed with “Last Man Standing,” it becomes a song about losing a friend. Over 20-plus shows since 1980, I’ve felt everything from exhilaration to exhaustion at a Springsteen concert. Wednesday was the first one that ever made me wipe away a tear.

“Bobby Jean” made a rare appearance to open the encores, and considering how well it fits thematically with some of the other songs, it’s surprising it’s not a regular part of the set.

Cleveland got a tour premiere with a horn-heavy arrangement of “Atlantic City,” although the tempo seemed too slow and the addition of horns wasn’t an improvement. “Pay Me My Money Down,” a throwback to Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions and another rarity on this tour, proved a much better showcase for the horns.

Other than those audibles, the show was identical to nearly every date on the first leg of the U.S. tour, which is a problem for only those going to multiple shows and expecting a radically different set each time.

The set is crafted, mixing songs of reflection likes the ones above (it’s telling that one song from the covers album “Only the Strong Survive” that gets played every night is “Nightshift,” the Commodores’ tribute to soul icons no longer with us), songs that showcase the XXL band and a finale that pummels the crowd with one greatest hit after another — “Thunder Road,” “Born to Run,” “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” “Glory Days,” “Dancing in the Dark” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” — before one final moment acknowledging the passing of time, a solo acoustic version of “I’ll See You in My Dreams.”

It’s a taut, at times tightly choreographed show. I love the looseness and spontaneity of some past tours — the only sign request Springsteen paid attention to Wednesday was one to sign the arm cast of a young concertgoer as he was walking to the floor ramp during “Tenth.” But the show accomplishes exactly what Springsteen sets out to do.

Complaints about the dynamic pricing used by Ticketmaster (and approved by the artist) on this tour are warranted, and I can sympathize with fans turned off by the price point (full disclosure: I didn’t have to pay for my ticket). That said, I can’t believe anyone who bought a ticket for Wednesday’s show and was seeing the tour for the first time left disappointed.

Only four U.S. shows remain on the first leg until Springsteen spends the next three months playing shows in Europe. The U.S. tour resumes in August and includes shows Sept. 12 and 14 at Pittsburgh’s PPG Paints Arena and a rescheduled Columbus show at Nationwide Arena on Sept. 21.