One song into the opening night of his 2009 North American tour, Bruce Springsteen [ tickets ] decided to take the pulse of the crowd at HP Pavilion in San Jose, CA.

"Is anybody alive out there?" he asked after bringing the all-time rock anthem "Badlands" to close with glorious results.

Yeah, Boss, the crowd was alive, greeting its hero with thunderous chants of "Brooooce!" that caused the hockey arena to tremble. Unfortunately, following the "Badlands" opener, New Jersey's favorite son and his fabled E Street Band provided precious little that would make fans' blood run quite so quick.

Clearly, The Boss wasn't at his best on Wednesday (4/1). Indeed, any concertgoer seeing Springsteen for the first time on this night would've had a hard time understanding why so many people have long championed the 59-year-old vocalist/guitarist as one of the greatest live performers of all time.

Of course, it was the opening night of the tour, and Springsteen has a history of righting any and all wrongs as his treks progress. That's definitely what happened during the 2007-08 "Magic" run, where the reviews improved greatly for the later dates.

He'll have his work cut out for him this time around. The main reason is that he's using this tour to promote his latest release, "Working On a Dream," an effort that might ranks as the biggest artistic disappointment in the star's career. If not the worst record he's ever made, it's right up there (or down there) with 1992's "Lucky Town" and 1995's "The Ghost of Tom Joad."

The "Dream" tracks that made the cut on this night were definitely disappointing, including the lightweight title track and the obnoxious "Outlaw Pete." The latter immediately followed the terrific take of "Badlands," which further underscored the already-apparent weakness of this forced attempt at myth making.

For the most part, the 11-piece E Street Band gave a passable performance as it carried such tracks as "Johnny 99," "No Surrender" and "Waitin' On a Sunny Day." In particular, guitarist Nils Lofgren provided some truly biting leads and, as always, Max Weinberg made a convincing case that he's as good as drummer as there is in the business.

Overall, however, the band seemed to be playing it safe, as if the musicians simply wanted to get through opening night without making any glaring mistakes. The players never found that elusive extra gear, the one that they were hitting routinely toward the end of the "Magic" tour, and please count Springsteen among that number.

Highlights were hard to come by, but one fell in a predictable fashion--the main-set closer of "Born to Run." Even on an off night, Springsteen is still able to make that song count.

Yet, it wasn't enough to make up for what was an unusually limp encore, consisting of six tunes. When it was all said and done, Springsteen had performed for roughly 2 hours 45 minutes, thus living up to his reputation for putting on marathon shows.

Ironically, this was the one night where fans might have desired a shorter set. And that's one April Fools' joke nobody could have seen coming.

Set list:

Badlands
Outlaw Pete
My Lucky Day
No Surrender
Out In The Street
Working On A Dream
Seeds
Johnny 99
Ghost of Tom Joad
Good Eye
Good Rockin' Tonight
Darlington County
Growin' Up
Waitin' On A Sunny Day
The Promised Land
The Wrestler

Kingdom Of Days
Radio Nowhere
Lonesome Day
Born To Run

Encore:

Hard Times
Thunder Road
Dancing In The Dark
Tenth Ave Freezeout
Land of Hope and Dreams
American Land