Springsteen still loves his work - and vice versa

Do we work to love or do we love to work?

For all his tiresome oxymoronic late-career insistence that he's "Working on a Dream" or that "I'll Work for Your Love," Bruce Springsteen is clearly a man who loves his work as a rock star.

Springsteen brought his world tour behind his new "Working on a Dream" album to Chicago's United Center Tuesday. From the opening "Badlands" to the by-placard-request encore of "Rosalita," he was a joyful, ecstatic presence over the course of his customary three-hour performance with the E Street Band.

Springsteen may not be as lithe and limber as he was singing "Spirits in the Night" 30-plus years ago. Truth be told, he's more than a little reminiscent of grizzled fitness guru Jack LaLanne these days, with his bristly grown-out buzz-cut hair, while "Little" Steven Van Zandt is not so little, and "Big Man" Clarence Clemons is hobbling around like the NFL veteran he is. (With his long black coat to hide the stool he requires, ruffled shirt and long braided hair, he looked like a fedora-wearing member of the Hogwarts faculty.)

Even crack guitarist Nils Lofgren no longer turns back flips, although he can still spin like a dervish in the midst of a solo. Soozie Tyrell, of Springsteen's "Seeger Sessions" project, stood in for Patti Scialfa as background singer and added violin counterpoint; make of that what you will, supermarket tabloid readers.

Yet the E Street Band's sound is bigger, brawnier and more boisterous than ever, and if the group also offered fewer surprises, it could still throw in a vintage "woo-woo" train rave-up at the end of "Johnny 99." Forced to improvise during a mid-set series of audience requests, Springsteen and the band also put forth a speedy, urgent version of Tommy James' "Mony Mony," complete with some distinctively unwholesome singalong vocals from the crowd.

Otherwise, however, the audience was adoring and utterly faithful in singing along and pumping fists in rhythm, even to new songs like "Outlaw Pete," which "Mighty" Max Weinberg had to drive home as if flogging a horse. No wonder he gave up the drum kit midway through to his teenage son Jay, who not only channeled Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez on "Born to Run" but added an actual drum solo to "Radio Nowhere."

If not even his youth could keep the band from flagging a little toward the end, especially in the encores during "Jungleland" - almost brought to a halt by Clemons' solo - the audience's constant singing along spurred the group. (By the way, no more lighting a match to request an encore; just wave the lit-up screen of your cell phone!) And when Springsteen did "Rosie," almost three hours in, he was as exuberant as he was 35 years ago, only with delightful little crow's feet to add a little wisdom of perspective as he smiled at the enduring tale of making it in the music business - and as his band rocked on.

Springsteen has a way of making his work seem anything but labored. In fact, he makes even a curmudgeonly old critic love his work as well.