Los Angeles, March 23 (IANS): Legendary singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen has spoken up about the physical toll that peptic ulcer disease took on him.

The singer, 74, told SiriusXM’s E Street Radio host Jim Rotolo that going back on the road with the E Street Band felt "so damn good" after taking time to focus on his health, reports ‘People’ magazine.

The ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ singer announced in late September that he was in the mid of treatment and was pushing back the remainder of his 2023 tour dates as a result.

Talking about his performance at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, Springsteen said: "I mean, first of all, Phoenix is a great town for us, and the crowd was off the Richter, off the Richter scale. A wonderful crowd we had, and the band just played great, you know, and I thought they might be tired, you might be a little fatigued, you might be a little rusty. No. You know, the guys were just fabulous from (the) first song on, and I felt great, and the whole band felt great.”

As per ‘People’, the rocker performed a 29-song set but, he questioned if he would be able to do so since his diaphragm hurt "so badly", making him unable to sing for months.

"Once I started singing, you know, you can rehearse singing, but your voice isn't the same in rehearsal. You don't have that edge of adrenaline that really pushes it into a better place and the thing when I had the stomach problem, one of the big problems was I couldn't sing," he explained.

"You sing with your diaphragm. You know, my diaphragm was hurting so badly that when I went to make the effort to sing, it was killing me, you know? So, I literally couldn't sing at all and that lasted for two or three months along with just a myriad of other painful problems,” he added.