Darby – The Archive Alcove

S&B Sept 1975 Springsteen Cover

Bruce Springsteen Concert at Grinnell, Fall 1975

50 years ago, Bruce Springsteen and his E Street band came to campus to perform in front of a packed house in the old Darby Gymnasium. Springsteen, whose career was just taking off that Fall, with the August release of his successful Born to Run album, was one of the more than 1,000 concerts that Georgia Dentel organized in her 40+ year career at college, overseeing performances and events. Dentel’s career has been the recent focal point for a series of group MAP projects, over the past two summers, in which Grinnell students have carefully reconstructed her life, work, and musical legacy.

The set list for the September 20^th concert at Grinnell was:

Incident on 57th Street
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Spirit in the Night
It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City
Thunder Road
Kitty’s Back
She’s the One
Born to Run
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

Encore

4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
Quarter to Three

Clarence Clemons (sax), Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt (guitar), Darby Gymn, Sept. 20, 1975

While there is no known recording of the Grinnell concert, you can listen to the live set Springsteen played (later in the Fall) at the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium (available at the Springsteen Archives on Youtube): https://youtu.be/H9BsJXUt0EQ?si=MY5LcAtWb0gQqELF

As students go through the rituals of pre-registration on campus, this week, it’s fun to look at an image of registration from the Fall of 1961, in Darby Gym, when everything was done by hand, face-to-face.

What curricular requirements would have been on the minds of students in 1961 as they selected their courses?

The College had just made some important changes to these requirements the year before:

It eliminated 3 requirements (e.g. 1 course in English & Speech, 1 course in Modern European History, and a numerical distribution requirement).
It added four new required courses: Humanities I (first semester) and Humanities II (second semester), Historical Studies I (second semester) and Historical Studies II (third semester).
It kept in place required coursework in science, foreign language, fine arts, religion or philosophy, and physical education.
It also retained the requirement of passing a swim test (or, alternatively, completing a course in swimming).
Lastly, the college created a new “junior liberal arts exam” that 3rd year students would have to successfully pass to graduate (beginning with the class of ’63, who were no doubt excited to be pioneers in this regard).

Tag: Darby

Bruce Springsteen’s Grinnell Concert, Fall 1975

Registration in the Days of Yore