Rising, Rocking With the Boss For thirty years, he's been proving it all night.

In the Church of Bruce Springsteen, the core ritual has always been the New Jersey rocker's live shows with the E Street Band, those epic, sweaty exhaust-athons meant to offer catharsis and salvation to all who attend.

From Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., in 1973 through last year's The Rising, Springsteen's albums have earned him stature as a uniquely American synthesist of everything from Phil Spector melodrama to Woody Guthrie social protest.

But if you were to lock a fan who considers Springsteen a working-class poet into a room with a skeptic who regards him as a millionaire poseur, the former would undoubtedly build his case on the Boss' concert greatness.

Ultimately, the Springsteen proponent's argument always boils down to the same command: "You gotta see him live."

The next chance to do so comes Saturday night, when Springsteen, 53, plays the second night of his three-concert stand at Lincoln Financial Field. Following Springsteen's show at the First Union Center on Oct. 6, the current series marks the return of the Rising tour to Philly, the singer's biggest market outside of New York. And there isn't another artist more appropriate to christen the Linc as a music venue.

The first time I saw Springsteen and the E Street Band was at the Spectrum on Dec. 8, 1980. I was 18, and I'd scored tickets to two nights of shows. I had heard tales of them playing into the wee hours, always up for another chance to prove it all night, and I was stoked.

I had just seen No Nukes, the concert movie in which Springsteen debuted the spine-tingling "The River," and tore the house down with Gary U.S. Bonds' "Quarter to Three." And I had heard the bootlegs, documents with such titles as You Can Trust Your Car to the Man Who Wears the Star, which captured a February 1975 show at the old Main Point in Bryn Mawr.

When that show was recorded, the band had an anything-goes feel in keeping with Springsteen's leather-jacketed street-urchin persona. Besides "Wings for Wheels," which would become "Thunder Road," the Main Point set was notable for the presence of Suki Lahav, who played with Springsteen throughout early 1975, 27 years before Soozie Tyrell would join on as the second E Street violinist. And there were covers of Bob Dylan's "I Want You" and Narvel Felts' "Mountain of Love" that made it clear Springsteen knew his history.