Prove it all night, indeed. Wednesday at the first of two sold-out shows at Wrigley Field, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band served official notice to anyone who cares about live rock ‘n’ roll: After 50 years together, the ensemble isn’t ready to back down or back off. The group’s smartly themed set urged the crowd to embrace the same resolve.

They began their electrifying, three-hour performance with “No Surrender” — a declarative anthem that served as a motif and whose “We learned more from a three-minute record, baby / Than we ever learned in school” lyric distilled the essence of Springsteen’s ethos. They then tore through eight songs before taking a single pause. Tight, focused, controlled, agile, skilled, prepared: Springsteen and Co. conducted a master class on what a band that puts in the hard work can achieve, and what decades of chemistry looks and sounds like.

In the process, the group, augmented by a four-piece choir and five-piece horn section, hit on nearly every style to emerge in the last seven-plus decades. Juke-joint blues, Southern soul, upbeat R&B, hardscrabble folk, boogie-woogie, country and Western, gospel, jazz, funk, surf, Tex Mex — it all got shaped and filtered through a widescreen rock ‘n’ roll lens. The band’s adventurousness and ambition were matched by its energy and enthusiasm, and an uncanny ability to continuously find another gear.

Springsteen and company are using the local dates as the launchpad for the next leg of an international tour that started in the U.S. in early February, ventured overseas in the spring and will continue in North America through mid-December. For possibly the first time in his career, Springsteen faced backlash over sky-high ticket costs — largely due to “dynamic pricing” — at odds with the working-class values on which he built his reputation. Though many of the elevated prices have fallen, some rankled followers went on record stating their relationship with the Boss is permanently soured.

Fair enough. But Wednesday’s concert showed the disgruntled fans are missing out on something without equal in an era in which rock ‘n’ roll no longer dominates or dictates the public conversation. Namely, a crack band that attacked each song as if its life depended on it, one that treated the shared experience as a sacred rite and maximized the communal aspect without the aid of spectacle.

Perhaps the extra spark owed to the band’s seven-year gap between Chicago-area gigs — it last played here in August 2016 at United Center — the longest since the break between the E Streeters’ late ‘80s dissolution and late ‘90s reunion. Or maybe Springsteen and his mates ironed out the kinks on the tour’s earlier stretches.

Not to say that Springsteen in 2023 is the same as Springsteen in 2012 (his prior Wrigley appearances) let alone Springsteen in 1984, or before. A few fundamental differences: Rather than rely on spontaneity or transforming the setlist for every show, he currently sticks to a template and varies just a few songs. He talks less. His legs-tucked, gravity-defying leaps and superhuman-lung capacity are bygones. A little more than a decade ago, Springsteen broadened his cast; up to 18 people play depending on the song. He also now rarely entertains the requests fans hold up on handwritten signs.

None of those changes registered an adverse effect. In conveying classics such as “Glory Days” and “Thunder Road” with subtle adjustments to tone, tempo and purpose, Springsteen demonstrated an acute awareness of age, circumstance and surroundings few major artists grasp — particularly if nostalgia remains the crux of the matter. His realization extended to the heightened perception of loss that accompanies growing older and witnessing friends die.

[ Bruce Springsteen in Milwaukee: At 73, he’s a little more open about final goodbyes.  ]

The 73-year-old New Jersey native addressed mortality with unmistakable directness via back-to-back songs. Though the stripped-down “Last Man Standing” came across as a sober, intimate plea Springsteen murmured to console his grief and steady his uncertainty, the fiery “Backstreets” emerged as a reminder, tribute and promise.”’Til the end,” the singer-guitarist repeated as if in a trance, the arrangement mushrooming from near silence into a series of thundering crescendos.

Wearing a black button-down shirt, bluejeans and gleaming oxblood-colored boots, the trim-and-fit Springsteen sang with a slightly deepened range and hit most of the intended notes. Darker, grittier and rawer than even a decade ago, his voice possessed the weathered, leathery feel of a broken-in baseball glove. It proved tailor-made for the life-affirming material, which primarily eschewed weighty topics and encouraged resilience, romance, faith, adventure, celebration, and deliverance in both the spiritual and physical senses.

Anchored by the unflappable rhythmic engine of drummer Max Weinberg — whose percussive combinations evoked everything from fists punching through plaster walls to steam trains gathering speed on railroad tracks — and bassist Garry W. Tallent, whose understated presence and black sunglasses radiated cool, Springsteen and the E Street Band fired from all directions. They swaggered (“Out in the Street”) and swerved (“Kitty’s Back”), hung out on neighborhood street corners (“The E Street Shuffle”) and hosted huge parties (“Mary’s Place”).

For the twanging honky-tonk of “Darlington County,” the group imagined a fiddle-happy barn dance where band members prioritized improvisatory fun over perfection. Springsteen welcomed more high jinks during the rave-up “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” and “Glory Days,” each sent up with slapstick humor, silly poses and exaggerated banter between the singer and Steven Van Zandt. Shtick? To a degree, yes. But also brief, harmless merriment and evidence of how much the musicians enjoy one another.

In addition to the dynamite interplay that regularly occurred between Springsteen, Weinberg and saxophonist Jake Clemons, such camaraderie underlined the value of seeing (and not just listening to) the group. As did Springsteen’s still-underrated guitar playing. His vivid techniques — he jabbed and poked at strings akin to a cat pawing a scratching post, pumped his right arm like an oil derrick on aggressive chords, turned knife-edge solos into weapons for back-alley brawls — were visual and aural delights. Ditto his command of the band and innate connection with the crowd.

Springsteen runs on a different motor than most of us. In many instances, he dared the audience to keep up with him in a similar manner that “The Promised Land” and “Wrecking Ball” challenged everyone to surmount ruinous lies, broken dreams and hard times. He descended stairs down to the field level on multiple occasions, interacting with fans, fulfilling the wishes of a few lucky individuals and strengthening bonds that resulted in the crowd serenading him for the first two verses of “Thunder Road.”

He returned the love, and added advice along the lines of the messages couched within many of his songs’ lyrics and uplifting choruses: Embrace the possibilities of “living right now.” Carpe diem. No retreat, no surrender.

Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.

Setlist for Wrigley Field Aug. 9, 2023:

“No Surrender”

“Ghosts”

“Prove It All Night”

“Letter to You”

“The Promised Land”

“Out in the Street”

“Darlington County”

“Kitty’s Back”

“Nightshift” (Commodores cover)

“The E Street Shuffle”

“Mary’s Place”

“Johnny 99″

“Last Man Standing”

“Backstreets”

“Because the Night”

“She’s the One”

“Wrecking Ball”

“The Rising”

“Badlands”

“Thunder Road”

Encore

“Born to Run”

“Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”

“Glory Days”

“Dancing in the Dark”

“Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”

Second Encore

“I’ll See You in My Dreams”