Vini Lopez sits in with the Boss

REDOIN’ THE E STREET SHUFFLE: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off a three-night stand at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium Wednesday night with a nearly four-hour show that featured rarely encountered oldies like "Mansion On The Hill," "Human Touch" and original E Street Band drummer Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez, who sat in with his former band mates on "E Street Shuffle." According to Rollingstone.com, it began when Max Weinberg stepped away from his kit during the songs horn intro. "Where did Max go?" Springsteen said. "What happened to the drummer? He got sick—we need an M.D.!" With that, Lopez took the stool to perform the song he originally cut with Springsteen back in 1973. The drummer, who parted ways with the band in 1974, was grinning from ear to ear the whole time, and he nailed his parts. Lopez came back onto the stage near the end to play tambourine on "10th Avenue Freeze-Out" and "Twist and Shout." The veteran musician’s past and present were poignantly recounted a couple of months back in a massive Springsteen profile written by New Yorker editor David Remnick—for our money the best piece of old-school rock criticism we’ve come across in recent years. You can read it on the mag’s site—all 17 pages—here. The stadium leg of the Wrecking Ball tour wraps up on Saturday night at MetLife Stadium. Springsteen turns 63 the next day. (9/21a)