On a cold June day in 1973, close to 18,000 UMass Amherst students
streamed into the football stadium to eat, drink, and listen to music
as part of Spring Carnival week. Three bands were scheduled to play:
Cold Blood, It’s a Beautiful Day, and the Elvin Bishop Group.
A few days before the event, the concert committee learned that the
Elvin Bishop band had split up. Luckily, they had a replacement, someone
they described as “a breaking talent.”
At 1 P.M. on June 5, to no fanfare, a young Bruce Springsteen and
his band took the stage.
“The band was actually pretty good so I took some photos,” writes
Jim Laford ’76. “At the time there was hardly anyone there so I just
walked to the front of the stage and snapped away.”
“Because they were unknown, you can see from one photo that students
just walked by the front of the stage with little notice. Not until
a few years went by did I realize who that opening band was.”
A review of that historically significant spring concert written by
Don Bishop ’73 was published in the Massachusetts
Daily Collegian.
He wrote: “Bruce Springsteen came as a virtually unknown performer.
… His group was received quite well, however, as indicated by the crowd’s
ovations after each number.”
Springsteen’s first album, “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.,” was
produced in 1973, and “The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle”
followed a year later. In 1975 he was on the cover of Time magazine
under the headline “Rock’s New Sensation.”
Fast forward to 2007. The annual spring concert takes place in the evening inside the Mullin’s Center. This year, more than 4,000 students listened to music by Ben Folds, Dashboard Confessional, The Roots, 80 Proof, Sara Bareilles, Talib Kweli, and OK Go. Perhaps a student who snapped a few pictures with his cell phone during the concert might one day look back and find they witnessed a pop-culture moment of greatness.
We’ll
have to wait and see.
