PITTSBURGH — It shouldn’t be a surprise that Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band played “Youngstown” both nights of its stint at PPG Paints Arena.

The city is only an hour from the venue. The Monongahela Valley, which also is name-checked in the song, is even closer. Still, it’s been played at less than a third of the shows this year and wasn’t performed at all in 2023, when the two Pittsburgh concerts originally were scheduled, so it wasn’t a given the steel industry elegy would be heard again Sunday.

As second shows in the same city often do, Sunday’s concert had a few wildcards. Ten of the 29 songs in the 185-minute performance weren’t played Thursday. “If I Was a Priest,” a previously unreleased song from the early 1970s that Springsteen included on his 2020 album “Letter to You,” got a rare performance, as did “I’m on Fire,” one of the bigger singles off of “Born in the USA,” but a song that isn’t a live staple at all. And while he didn’t make an appearance Thursday, Pittsburgh’s Joe Grushecky joined the band on stage for a cover of “Twist and Shout,” the night’s penultimate song.

“Death to My Hometown” — which featured Nils Lofgren on banjo, Charlie Giordano on a concertina, Jake Clemons on a bass drum and percussionist Anthony Almonte on a tom that was strapped over his shoulder — was stunning musically and visually. “Spirit in the Night” was nicely staged, with Springsteen and Clemons sitting on the step at the front of the stage for one portion of the song.

The “Darkness on the Edge of Town” album got an extended showcase with “Candy’s Room,” “Adam Raised a Cain” and the title track joining staples “The Promised Land” and “Badlands” in the set.

Hardcore Springsteen fans who see multiple shows on every tour grumble the 2023-24 run lacks the spontaneity of previous tours. Some of that is driven by the sheer size of the ensemble and by the story Springsteen wants to tell.

Springsteen has 17 other players on stage with him with a four-voice choir, four additional horns and a second percussionist in addition to the core band. That size limits the flexibility — there aren’t many sign requests taken from the crowd on this tour — but the show gives all of those performers their own moment.

While things have loosened up some, the framework of the set isn’t significantly different from the show Springsteen played nearly 18 months ago in Cleveland. “Ghosts,” “Last Man Standing,” “Backstreets,” “Wrecking Ball,” “I’ll See You in My Dreams” all are infused with retrospection, looking back on friends lost and expressing a defiant resiliency for what’s been endured and what’s still to come. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” a joyous song about the start of the E Street Band, now serves as a tribute to late members Clarence Clemens and Danny Federici. I wish he’d play something besides “Nightshift” live off his covers’ album “Only the Strong Survive,” but that Commodores’ ode to long gone music legends fits well with those other songs.

A month shy of his 75th birthday, Springsteen is the embodiment of that defiant resiliency, staring down aging and seemingly winning. If anything, his energy level was higher Sunday than it was last year in Cleveland. There was more interaction with the crowd, and his guitar solos, especially on the “Darkness” songs, had a real ferocity.

I’ve passed on chances to see a few legends in recent years, mainly because I’d seen them before and there was no way they could match the performances I saw when they were closer to their peaks. I can’t argue that Springsteen’s shows today are better than the ones I saw in the 1980s, but they continue to thrill and inspire in ways that few artists of any age can match.

Have an interesting story? Contact Andy Gray by email at agray@trib

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