The Boss is back but he’s travelling light this time. On this tour, Bruce Springsteen has ditched his legendary E Street Band and gone on a solo run. Those of you accustomed to the all-guns-blazing, fist-in-the-air exuberance of his typical live show may find that seeing Springsteen don his sensitive troubadour hat takes a little getting used to.

Like Neil Young without Crazy Horse, Springsteen immerses himself in the tools of his trade — piano, harmonium, harmonica, guitar and banjo — and invites us into a more intimate and intense zone. This is all in keeping with the mood of his latest album, Devils & Dust, which follows in the classic folk tradition of Woody Guthrie and early Dylan, with its tragic tales of doomed immigrants and hopeless, penniless drifters. The big music of The Rising from 2002 has been sidelined.

The tone is set from the start with My Beautiful Reward performed on a lonely-sounding harmonium. This is followed by the bluesy rasp of Reason to Believe, featuring the most distorted harmonica and vocal effects this side of Tom Waits. Devils & Dust indirectly tackles the war in Iraq but it seems disappointingly vague compared with, say, the latest missive from Steve Earle.

That said, it’s not as though Springsteen sat on the fence during last year’s US presidential election: he was, of course, John Kerry’s chief celebrity cheerleader on the Vote for Change tour. And the defeat clearly still rankles with him: a new song, Part Man, Part Monkey, is, he explains, a condemnation of the creationist beliefs held by George Bush.

Thankfully, he manages to find room for some of the old classics. None was better than The River, which was brilliantly rearranged for piano; there were also subtle changes to the vocal melody so as to breathe fresh life into a song the 5,000-strong audience could probably all sing in their sleep. He pulled the same trick on I’m on Fire, the latter coming courtesy of a slow, sullen banjo.

Now 55 — but still looking dapper — Springsteen discussed the joys and worries of parenthood as an intro to Jesus was an Only Son. It’s all a long way from the restless young couples trying to escape their humdrum lives (the stirring Land of Hope and Dreams for instance).

Sometimes absorbing, sometimes soporific, the finale brought us full circle: a well-chosen cover of a song by the cult 1970s duo Suicide (titled Dream Baby Dream), with a lazy, looped riff from the booming harmonium ringing atmospherically around the venue.

Bruce Springsteen plays the Albert Hall, May 27 and 28

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