The stage is in the background, a packed house surrounds us. Still a wonderful memory, but hard to separate from the horror movie playing just beneath it, one that would shut theater doors just a few weeks later while we began the long, painful climb out of our collective COVID-19 nightmare. The virus took the stage away from all of us. On Saturday night, the Boss took it back. Bruce Springsteen has always been first to show up in troubled times and usher music lovers back to the light, most notably with 2002's restorative post-9/11 album The Rising and subsequent tour with his beloved and mighty E Street Band. So it's really no surprise that he would lead the charge in welcoming starved theatergoers back to claim their seats on the Great White Way with a revival of his Tony-winning knockout Springsteen on Broadway for a 30-date run at the St. James Theatre. The hour leading up to the show was its own performance. Anti-vaxxers crowded the street outside with signs blaring "Bruce Springsteen is for segregation on Broadway" - an extreme take on the venue's more-than-reasonable vaccine entry policy - while the audience filed in, many with a look of stunned excitement across their uncovered faces. This was, after all, the Theater District's first crack at post-pandemic seat-filling, and everyone seemed to be taking a beat to decide exactly how to behave. "Broadway is back, baby," one gentleman said repeatedly to anyone within earshot. "Gotta be a special guest or two," added his date. And in fact, cell phones did emerge from purses and pockets as New Jersey governor Phil Murphy pressed the flesh en route to his seat, just before E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt tried to slide in discreetly to watch the show and ended up drawing an earth-shaking ovation. Little Steven's capo di tutti capi hadn't even taken the stage yet and the room was vibrating. After easing in with opener "Growin' Up," Springsteen sat on a piano bench and gave words to the moment: "It's good to see everyone together, unmasked, sitting next to one another in one room." He then followed with a brief summation of his past year, which included one album (Letter to You), one podcast series with former president Barack Obama (Renegades: Born in the USA), and one arrest for accepting two tequila shots from fans while on a motorcycle at a federal park in New Jersey last November.