'Springsteen was very affable and very nice,' Dentel remembers. It was like we had known each other for years and years. 'I don't think I've had anybody in the large concerts who took such an interest. 'None of this came from him.' It seemed that the band's front man had no attitude at all about playing little Grinnell College - or if he did, he hid it well.ĭentel and the Boss spent some time together that afternoon, and she remembers him as quite congenial. 'Bruce Springsteen was just the nicest person,' Dentel says. He told the roadies to pile up the instrument and equipment cases to extend the stage. By then, the Boss had arrived, and the stage instantly became a non-problem. It wasn't big enough, the roadies said, although it stretched the entire length of the gym. Then came a dispute over the size of the stage. 'It made me a little angry,' Dentel remembers. 'Springsteen, as I recall, was not with them.' Someone in the band - she's not sure who - made the comment, somewhat rudely, 'What is this, a private party?' 'They walked in the Eighth Avenue door as a group,' Dentel says. 25 release of what would be his breakout album, Born to Run. Springsteen's fee for playing Grinnell was about $3,500.īy the time students returned to campus in the fall of 1975, Springsteen's star was indeed on the ascent, after the famous Bottom Line concerts in New York and the Aug. 'Never had I been called so early to book somebody,' Dentel says. They booked the concert for the fall of 1975, more than a year in advance.

He said, 'Georgia, do you want to book Springsteen?'' If so, he warned, do it now, because he'll be so big soon, you'll never be able to afford him. 'A booker from New York, Bob Bonis, called me in March of 1974 to do us a special favor. 'By 1975, we had been giving major concerts for about 10 years,' she remembers. 'There were a lot of problems.' For years, she struggled with small budgets, poor sound equipment, and a lingering bias against student concerts on campus. 'We were trying to have first-rate artists,' Dentel says. By 1975, she says had built up a rapport with many artists and their managers, and this benefited Grinnell in getting hard-to-obtain artists - such as Bruce Springsteen. Grinnell College can thank Georgia Dentel, working with student concert coordinators Carlson Smith '76 and Dan Meltzer '77, for bringing Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band to campus.ĭentel, director of the performing arts program, came to the College in 1960 to ramp up the quality of the acts the College brought to Grinnell. It had everything to do with a 'flashy punk' from Asbury Park, N.J., and his music. Something definitely happened at Darby Gym that night, but it had nothing to do with gate-crashers or rioting fans. It would be wrong to say nothing happened.

It was practically a Red Alert for this small Iowa town. Students were advised to be particularly cautious, and to carry their IDs and lock their doors and windows. Only 200 tickets were available for the public ($5 apiece), and no one knew how many people might show up. It was dubbed 'The Springsteen Invasion.' College officials were so worried that throngs of crazed Bruce Springsteen fans would crash the concert in Darby Gym that they hired security - Pinkerton guards, according to the S&B - to stand guard around the gym. But first, let's set the scene.Īdministrators at Grinnell were scared. Our compilation of alumni reminiscences begins below. The Grinnell Magazine is marking the 30th anniversary of the concert by collecting the stories of the people who were lucky enough to be there. In the years since, the Grinnell concert has become nothing less than a legend. A month later, Springsteen simultaneously appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek, hailed as the future of rock and roll. 20, 1975, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played to a packed house at Grinnell's Darby Gym, virtually rockin' the place down.

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