The last tour of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band is 2009 ?

Guitarist Nils Lofgren has played in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band for 25 years. That means he's been through four of The Boss's massive tours that have stopped at The Spectrum -- the 42-year-old concert and sports arena on Broad Street in Philadelphia.

That includes a memorable show in 1999, when the band interrupted a stand of concerts at what was then Philly's new First Union Center. The group moved across the street for one night to play The Spectrum -- a feat submitted to the Guinness Book of Records as the shortest distance traveled by a rock show.

With Springsteen set to play four concerts starting Tuesday that will mark the band's final appearances at the soon-to-be-razed Spectrum, Lofgren says that he fondly remembers those earlier shows.

But in a telephone interview Wednesday, he says none of them are his best memory of The Spectrum.

That, Lofgren says, came in 1968, a year after The Spectrum opened, when he was a 17-year-old from Washington, D.C. He took a train to Philadelphia and hitchhiked from the station to the arena to see a rock festival that included The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Moby Grape and others.

''As a young teenager seeking out musical heroes, I had managed to befriend or become familiar with some of them, including the guitar players in Big Brother and The Holding Company, Janis Joplin's Band,'' he says.

''And I found myself -- long story short -- backstage at The Spectrum on a road case talking to the guitarist. And next thing I knew, somebody bumped my shoulder and I turned to, I believe it was my left, and there was Janis Joplin handing me a bottle of Southern Comfort.

''And not that I'm proud of it,'' he says, laughing. ''I think the drinking [legal age] in D.C. was 18 at that time. But anyway, it was kind of a thrill to pass it down the row from Janis Joplin. ... Of my many fond memories of The Spectrum, that was the most memorable.''

Springsteen's final stand at The Spectrum is likely to make more memories not only for Lofgren, but for attendees, as well. He also plays there Wednesday and Oct. 19-20.

Springsteen first played The Spectrum in 1973 to open for the band Chicago.

''Bruce and all of us were fans that had been in and out of that building as many times as people in the audience,'' Lofgren says. ''Luckily, now as successful performers. We all share some of the history with The Spectrum.''

Lofgren notes he met his wife, Amy Aiello, at the famed Asbury Park, N.J., club The Stone Pony. ''I'm also married to a Jersey girl,'' he says. ''I got a lot of in-laws and friends and I'm an honorary New Jerseyian, so I've been up and down the Turnpike, I'm sure, way more than most people who live here.''

Lofgren says the Spectrum shows will continue what Springsteen started in a five-show run at Giants Stadium -- playing the song sequence of full albums. ''Born to Run'' will be played Tuesday and Oct. 19, ''Darkness on the Edge of Town'' on Wednesday and ''Born in the U.S.A.'' on Oct. 20.

But that won't impinge on what Springsteen will play, Lofgren says. He says the albums take up just an hour of what are three-hour shows of nearly 30 songs. In fact, he says Springsteen has taken to abandoning set lists and instead often calls out songs to play. He also collects audience signs with requests, sifts through them and then chooses some songs.

''Bruce is changing songs on the way to the stage,'' Lofgren says. ''He's changing songs all night long, he's changing arrangements during the songs. Last tour I was joking that he'd pull out a sign of a song that we might not have played for 15 years and I thought that was pretty adventurous. And now this tour, we're playing songs we don't know how to play.''

But by now, Lofgren says he's used to it. He replaced ''Little'' Steven Van Zandt in the E Street Band in 1984 -- ''four weeks before opening night'' of the ''Born in the U.S.A.'' tour, he says. That's the same time Patty Scialfa, who became Springsteen's wife, joined.

Lofgren was an accomplished musician, having played piano on Neil Young's ''Gold Rush'' album at 17, shortly after the Spectrum show at which he met Joplin. He also played guitar on other Young albums and toured with him; fronted his own band, Grin, that opened for Hendrix; and released more than a half-dozen critically acclaimed solo discs.

Because he joined after completion of ''Born in the U.S.A.,'' Lofgren's first appearance on a Springsteen album was bonus songs on 1986's ''Live 1975-85'' and on the title track of 1987's ''Tunnel of Love.'' But because Springsteen went 15 years without a full-band disc, Lofgren's first full E Street Band record was 2002's ''The Rising.''

He initially toured with Springsteen until 1989, when The Boss told the E Street band he wouldn't need them in the foreseeable future. Lofgren then played two tours with Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band, on Young's '' MTV Unplugged'' CD, and released a couple more solo discs.

When the E Street Band reformed in 1999, both Lofgren and Van Zandt returned as guitarists.

Even while playing in the E Street Band, Lofgren continues his solo career -- last year he released ''The Loner: Nils Sings Neil,'' a tribute disc of covers of Neil Young songs -- and works on other projects, such as online guitar lessons through his Web site, http://www.NilsLofgren.com .

After 41 years on the road and at age 58, Lofgren acknowledges he has to do things differently. A career of doing backflips during shows and playing basketball between them left Lofgren needing double hip replacements in 2008 -- the first Giants Stadium show marked the one-year anniversary. But he says the operation has him feeling the best he has in five years.

''Certainly it'd be stupid to jump off 10-foot drum risers at this point,'' he says.

But then, he says, he sees Springsteen, at 60, crowd surfing ''through 800 yards of an audience and doing all kinds of crazy leaps and jumps, and that's just extraordinary.''

Lofgren says the E Street Band has ''no plans for a next chapter'' after the tour concludes in November, but ''if and when there's ever another call, I'll be there.''

''Not to be greedy, but I don't really see an end in sight as a performer for myself.''