Ahead of the Boss’s Sunday night headlining performance at the sprawling Sea Hear Now festival on the Asbury Park beach, he hopped on an old stage a few blocks away, at The Stone Pony as part of the festival’s after-party, joining E Street bandmate Jake Clemons and photographer Danny Clinch’s Tangiers Blues Band for a handful of tunes.

“Here I am back where it all started, how does that happen?” Springsteen said in a video tribute to the Asbury Park music venue, which is celebrating half a century of rock and roll. “Happy 50th anniversary Stone Pony, you made it! It’s a miracle you’re still here but I’m glad you are. Love to everybody!”

He played five songs Saturday night, all covers: “Boom Boom,” “Down the Road Apiece,” “Lucille,” “My Babe,” and “Gloria,” according to BruceBase, the long-running tracker of Springsteen’s concerts.

The festival’s Saturday night headliner, singer-songwriter Noah Kahan, also played the after-party, covering Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.”

It was Springsteen’s first appearance at the vaunted Jersey Shore club since 2019, when played a private indoor benefit in November, according to Rolling Stone. His last outdoor appearance there was in July of that year, when he crashed Southside Johnny and E Street bandmate Garry Tallent’s show on the Stone Pony Summer Stage.

The Saturday set resembled Springsteen’s 2018 performance at nearby Asbury Lanes, when he led a blues-tinged set — also with Clinch’s band — to help reopen the venue.

“Wow imagine being there and this guy walks in,” fan Donna Buckley commented on the E Street Nation Facebook group.