{"id":5249,"date":"2012-06-10T13:54:22","date_gmt":"2012-06-10T17:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=5249"},"modified":"2014-01-25T18:10:10","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T23:10:10","slug":"hard-rocking-in-the-heavy-seventies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=5249","title":{"rendered":"Hard-rocking in the Heavy Seventies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the autumn of 1973, a newsy cap-wearing Jersey boy was about to turn the tables on Kendall Hall.<\/p>\n

Opening for Brian Auger and his ominously named Oblivion Express, a young Bruce Springsteen and his band ran through some of his first big tunes, like \u201cSpirit in the Night\u201d and \u201cThe E Street Shuffle,\u201d and did a couple of things that Mike Butkus \u201976<\/strong> had never seen before.<\/p>\n

Butkus and his rocker friends were impressed with the way Springsteen wove stories about girls and the boardwalk into his set, and bewildered when the E Street Band brought out a tuba.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was one of those unusual people,\u201d said the former photographer for The Signal<\/em> and The Seal.<\/em><\/p>\n

Halfway through the Oblivion Express, students began slipping out: \u201cBruce Springsteen stole the show,\u201d the 1973 Seal<\/em> recalled.<\/p>\n

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Bruce Springsteen during his November 11, 1973, concert on campus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Butkus wasn\u2019t very surprised when, after the release of Born to Run<\/em> in 1975, Springsteen\u2019s career took off. The songwriter took his time with the TSC audience and encouraged participation. \u201cYou could tell he liked what he was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

That opening slot was The Boss\u2019 last gig at the College, but he wasn\u2019t the only big name to take the stages of Kendall Hall and the Rhodora Theatre.<\/p>\n

Later that same year, Electric Light Orchestra wowed students, performing with jazz-fusion openers, Chick Corea and the Return to Forever. A Signal<\/em> reviewer wasn\u2019t a fan of ELO\u2019s vocals, but he praised the band\u2019s cello-tinged impact, calling the show \u201cone whale of a musical display that Trenton State College will have to wait many a moon to see matched.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the decade, the College brought in a diverse stock of whale-sized acts; between the hot chart-toppers, the avant-garde head-scratchers and the thoughtful singer-songwriters, it\u2019s not easy to sum up the campus concert scene in the 1970s. But one thing was pretty consistent, according to Butkus: \u201c[The shows] were always packed \u2026 it was the thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

On concert weekends, TSC\u2019s saloon door swung: Commuting students abandoned campus on Friday afternoons, Butkus said, only to flock back to school for Saturday show times.<\/p>\n

Greg Caiola \u201979<\/strong>, a former WTSR station manager, attested to the diversity of the musical offerings, recalling performances by Blood Sweat & Tears (\u201cthe horn section was amazing\u201d), proto-rap guru Gil Scott-Heron (\u201csome of his stuff is not for the faint of heart\u201d), and even a rising Tom Waits, who played in the newly opened Rathskeller.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so damn cheap it\u2019s almost a sin,\u201d said Caiola, who returned to his alma mater last year in the role of director of corporate and foundation relations. A few dollars bought students the chance to see nationally known acts\u2014as well as less known but remarkably talented ones\u2014who often stopped at the College on their way to Philadelphia or New York.<\/p>\n

Folk, soul, jazz, classical, rock, pop, and fusion were all welcome. \u201cThere was never a shortage of good music on campus,\u201d Caiola said.<\/p>\n

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Kool and the Gang during a November 2, 1973, concert on campus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The pages of 1970s yearbooks capture a festival billing\u2019s worth of stars: Steppenwolf visited in 1970; The Byrds and Seals & Crofts in 1971; blues legend John Lee Hooker and jazz great Duke Ellington in 1973; Billy Joel, the piano man, in 1974; Peter Frampton in 1976; The Kinks in 1977; and The J. Geils Band in 1979.<\/p>\n

And that list, in many ways, only scratches the surface.<\/p>\n

The Signal<\/em> poked fun at the tidal wave of gushing over Peter Frampton when the guitarist and singer played Kendall Hall. At the show, a reporter said, \u201cHe was confronted by at least two dozen musically aroused women.\u201d The highlight of the night? \u201cEither the introduction of a \u2018voice box\u2019 into his repertoire or the unsnapping of his skin tight stretch pants\u2014depending on your sexual persuasion.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Frampton wasn\u2019t the only one stealing hearts. The student newspaper gave singer-songwriter Janis Ian a loving review after her 1974 show at the Rhodora. \u201cI saw a love poem Monday night \u2026 her name is Janis Ian and she\u2019s not much bigger than the Martin guitar that hung from her shoulders,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n

Students rubbed elbows with rockstars. Michael Silance \u201977<\/strong> ran into Billy Joel before a Friday night show. \u201cI met him and some of his band members that afternoon \u2026 it was a cold snowy day and I was in the \u2018Old Pub\u2019 back then,\u201d Silance recalled. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Joe Howarth \u201978<\/strong> worked the concerts\u2014moving equipment and overseeing the stage and performer areas\u2014for $2.25 an hour. He met Frampton and Al Stewart through his stage gig, but he didn\u2019t make too much of the encounter, he said. \u201cThey were just pretty cool people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Theresa Martinac \u201972, MEd \u201973<\/strong>, a former CUB director and a current executive board member of the Alumni Association, remembered a moment of star-shock. She was on her way to retrieve the check for the retro group Sha Na Na, which she booked for Fall Weekend. \u201cI\u2019m coming back, (and) standing outside Packer Hall is this guy in jeans and a white T-shirt.\u201d The greaser she bumped into, she eventually realized, was one of the singers.<\/p>\n

Sha Na Na was only her favorite of a number of fondly remembered performances which, she said, took place at a significant point in music\u2014the transition from psychedelic rock and bubblegum pop to the grander, still more diversified sounds at the turn of the decade. \u201cThere was still some of the message\u2026but you were getting into a whole other area of music.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Nearly every show, it seems, had its quirks. Billy Joel, who ended up playing the entirety of his Piano Man<\/em> album, arrived more than an hour late due to a snowstorm, and he thanked the College students for their patience. Organizers screened Reefer Madness in between sets. The Charlie Daniels Band, which gave an otherwise great performance, left students\u2019 ears ringing for days. Patti LaBelle played \u201cmadam\u201d as her female cohorts \u201cpropositioned\u201d members of the crowd during LaBelle\u2019s hit, \u201cLady Marmalade.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Peter Frampton came alive on campus on February 13, 1976.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There were scores of mention-worthy performers that have faded from mainstream memory\u2014they include innumerable folk artists, organist Virgil Fox, and jazz-guitar star John McLaughlin with his Mahavishnu Orchestra. Renaissance, the English prog-rock band, gave what Caiola called \u201cas perfect a concert as I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

But everyone can hang their hats on the heavy-hitters.<\/p>\n

The Kinks were well-seasoned rock stars when they \u201cKonquered Kendall\u201d in 1977, as The Signal<\/em> wrote. The students cheered \u201cL-O-L-A\u201d along with frontman Ray Davies on \u201cLola,\u201d and the singer emerged for an encore dressed as Santa Claus, a nod to the band\u2019s edgy holiday single, \u201cFather Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the music still resonated with the students in the audience, most of whom were children when the band broke in the U.S. with \u201cYou Really Got Me.\u201d On \u201cSchooldays,\u201d Davies sang, \u201cNow I wish I hadn\u2019t strayed\/And I\u2019d go back if I could only find a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe still maintains his appeal to the common, everyday young person,\u201d a student reviewer wrote.<\/p>\n

The students seemed equally enthralled by the musical elders: A Seal<\/em> spread on Duke Ellington\u2019s concert thanked the bandleader for his appearance. \u201cHis boundless smile and endless talent did more to say love than a thousand words, yet no one would say that Duke is short on words,\u201d the yearbook said. The 1973 performance would be one of Sir Duke\u2019s last; he passed away the next year.<\/p>\n

Old and young, rising stars and fabled legends, jazzbos, rockers, and troubadours\u2014all sorts of performers left their mark on the students of Trenton State in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

For Martinac, the concerts she saw as a college student are classic cases of I-saw-them-when. It\u2019s a treat, she said, to be able to look back and say, \u201cWow, wait a minute.\u201d Somewhere along the crossroads of pop music history, that all really happened.<\/p>\n\n\t\t