It was a political rally. It was a revival meeting. It was a therapy session.

Friday’s appearance by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band at Rocket Arena was many things, but Springsteen and his small army of musicians and backing singers never forgot that it was, first and foremost, a rock concert.

Cleveland was one of the final stops on Springsteen’s most politically focused tour ever. He’s participated in various benefit concerts and shorter treks with other acts — the Vote for Change tour in 2004 and the Amnesty International tour in 1988 — but playing hour-long sets on multi-band bills meant Springsteen mostly let the music deliver the message.

On this Land of Hope and Dreams/No Kings tour, Springsteen did pause a few times to directly address the audience about the problems he has with the current administration. Before “My City of Ruins,” Springsteen sat on the front of the stage and ran down a litany of issues, from the actions of federal ICE agents to the dismantling of organizations like USAID to scrubbing American history of its problematic past.

The purpose of this tour isn’t to change hearts and minds. Any one-time Springsteen fan who’s ever said, “I liked Bruce before he got ‘woke,'” and chose to go to a show advertised as the Land of Hope and Dreams/No Kings tour is a special kind of masochist.

This tour was the liberal equivalent of a Trump rally. At a time when many, regardless of their political views, feel isolated, it was a communal experience surrounded by like-minded people.

The concert opened and closed with covers — The Temptations’ “War” a minute after the advertised 7:30 p.m. start time and Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” 2 hours and 45 minutes later.

I didn’t stop-watch Springsteen’s speeches, but it was no more than 10 minutes of that running time. So the capacity crowd still walked out hearing more music than probably any other audience will get from a headliner at Rocket Arena this year.

It’s a tightly curated setlist with songs that amplified the themes of those between-song speeches intermingled with long-time fan favorites and joyous anthems to provide a release valve to some of the more somber material.

Springsteen juxtaposes “The Streets of Minneapolis,” written following the homicides of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents, with “The Promised Land,” creating a where-we-are/where-we-strive- to-be dichotomy.

“Born in the USA” may be one of Springsteen’s best-known songs, but in recent years it’s one he hasn’t sung as much as other hits from that album, at least in the U.S., because many ignore the verses and interpret it as a flag-waving anthem. Sandwiched between “War” and “Death to My Hometown” to start the show, its context was clear.

When Springsteen played “No Surrender” at Rocket Arena as part of his 2023-24 tour, it was part of a set filled with songs of a man looking back, reflecting on his life and “ready to grow young again.” Friday it was a battle cry to fight the status quo. Even an upbeat ditty like “Two Hearts,” with Springsteen and Stevie Van Zandt sharing a microphone on the chorus, felt more like a call for unity in order to overcome current obstacles.

Joining the E Street Band on this tour is Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, who last toured with Springsteen in 2013-14. Few artists have intermingled their art with their advocacy more than Morello, and he traded vocals and guitar licks with Springsteen on a cover of The Clash’s “Clampdown” and delivered epic guitar solos on “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and “41 Shots.” Adding to the power of the latter was the “hands up, don’t shoot” pose sax player Jake Clemons maintained throughout Morello’s shredding.

“Youngstown” was the 11th song in the 27-song set, opening with a spotlight on Springsteen and Max Weinberg at the drum kit bathed in red light as if illuminated by the blaze of the Jeannette blast furnace at Youngstown Sheet & Tube. The song also provided a solo showcase for guitarist Nils Lofgren.

With four backup singers, several singing band members and a “choir” of about 18,000 audience members, songs such as “Long Walk Home,” “My City of Ruins,” “The Rising” and “Land of Hope and Dreams” had a gospel feel. And with everyone except Weinberg moving to the front of stage to perform “American Land” as the first encore, it became a hootenanny.

Before “Chimes of Freedom,” Springsteen encouraged the audience to follow the advice of the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis to get into good trouble while also trying to diffuse the divisive rhetoric that has become the political norm.

“America was born out of disagreement. It’s an ongoing, blessed, sacred argument about the course the country should take to form that more perfect union. We can argue about these things while still recognizing our common humanity, our dignity, our unity.”

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com.