The Night Bruce Springsteen Blew Up

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Photo by Barry Patton

Bruce Springsteen in concert - Barry Patton

Bruce Springsteen in concert

In the summer of 1975, music editor Gary Peterson of the Bugle American, Milwaukee’s popular alternative newspaper at the time, visited writer-producer Jon Landau in a small recording studio in New York City and listened to some of the unfinished tracks that were to appear on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street’s Band’s highly anticipated album Born to Run.

“I don’t think at the time I was familiar with Bruce Springsteen yet, but you could tell these were going to be something,” recalled Peterson’s wife (then girlfriend), Joyce. 

A bootleg recording of the title track had already stirred enthusiasm among listeners after radio stations across the country had given it airtime, and Landau’s famous quote, “I saw rock and roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen,” which appeared in The Real Paper in the spring of 1974, had created a buzz. Still, although his first two albums had garnered some critical acclaim, they hadn’t sold well and Columbia had plans to drop Springsteen if the third album, a belabored effort that had taken 14 months to record, wasn’t a confirmed success.

With his blue collar, down to earth, storytelling demeanor and the sensational musicians that made up the E-Street Band, the charismatic, guitar-toting singer was thought to have some serious star potential, and the record company had been banking on that. But at the time of Born to Run’s release on Aug. 25, 1975, and the start of what became a grueling nearly three-year long tour promoting it, the New Jersey-born and bred musician was still what’s known in the music world as a “baby act.” 

Sold Out Show

It was only weeks later, on Oct. 2, that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were booked to appear at the Uptown Theater in Milwaukee. A venue with approximately 1,800 seats, the show sold out ahead of time and local radio stations helped to build the hype by playing Springsteen all week long. “It was a big deal to get Springsteen,” said Randy McElrath of Daydream Productions, the company that brought in most of the big names to Milwaukee at the time. “We sold out in minutes.”

Even so, no one could have anticipated that what happened on the night of Oct. 2^, 1975, would become a Milwaukee urban legend that helped launch Springsteen and his band towards superstardom.

“That show has become notorious for a number of reasons,” said writer Barry Patton who covered the concert for the Bugle American that night. “At that point in time the truism was if you could go out to the heartland, you could play anywhere in the U.S., so a whole lot of things started there. It was a very unique time in this country.”

The anticipation was palpable as the crowd found their seats at the Uptown Theater that night. “From the moment Bruce & band took to the stage you could sense the intensity of the moment,” wrote Patton in the following week’s issue that featured not only a review and photos of the concert, but a retrospective of Springsteen’s career to date.

Springsteen opened with a surprising choice, a subdued reading of “Meeting Across the River,” backed only by Roy Bittan on piano, then dove into a spirited rendition of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” with the whole band, including Clarence Clemons in his white suit, “hitting all the notes you want to hear.”

By the third song, “Spirit in the Night,” Springsteen was crawling on all fours over the orchestra pit and out into the crowd, wooing his audience into rapture. The energy continued to build with a dynamic cover of “Pretty Flamingo,” and by the time the band fell into “She’s the One” followed by “Born to Run,” the show had taken flight and the audience was hanging on every note.

Clear the Building

But then the musicians were ushered offstage and a short conference brought everything to an unexpected pause. The band departed and Springsteen returned to stage alone, sitting down at the piano. Accompanying himself, he sang an acoustic version of “Thunder Road,” masterfully tuning the audience in while bringing the energy down several notches.

Meanwhile, popular Milwaukee DJ Bob Reitman, the show’s MC, reluctantly left his center row seat near the front of the stage at the behest of Dr. Allen Reed, the head of the medic team on hand. 

“At first, I said, no, I didn’t want to get out of my chair and do anything else but listen to the show,” said Reitman, “but I could tell they were serious. So that’s when they found out about the bomb scare.”

“Bob was sitting right behind me,” recalled Patton. “Somebody came up and I’m hearing the conversation because its right behind my head—and says ‘you gotta come up on stage… there’s an issue.’ So, he went up.”

As “Thunder Road” came to a close, Reitman walked onstage and took the mic, calmly informing the audience that a bomb threat had been phoned in and security needed to clear the building. Everyone was to leave quickly and quietly but the audience was informed that if all went well, the concert would resume at midnight.

“Are You Loose?”

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Photo by Barry Patton

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen

In response to the disgruntled cries, Springsteen chimed in next, reassuring the crowd that they would indeed come back and do it all again after midnight. And then he walked out the front door alongside his fans.

The crowd dispersed, mostly into nearby restaurants and bars, and a few fans went home, either intending to return after midnight, or passing their tickets on to others in their stead. Meanwhile Daydream’s security and the Milwaukee police force searched the building for the next three hours.  

Springsteen and the band members went back to their hotel, the legendary Pfister, and congregated at the bar. A Romanesque Revival-style building that was purported to be haunted and had once been dubbed “The Grand Hotel of the West,” the Pfister’s bartender would coin the phrase that was to become a mantra for Springsteen fans in Milwaukee ever since. As Springsteen relayed to the crowd later that night, “I don’t know what you did, but we got real weird.”

“My brother actually followed Springsteen and his band down to one of the local bars during the break,” said Patton, “and they were in that bar for a couple of hours … Bruce supposedly didn’t drink, but that night he did. Everybody was drinking, loosening up, you know, probably settling their nerves because of the bomb scare. It was also the night that Are you loose? was birthed.”

Though Springsteen had and still has a reputation for never drinking before a show, he and the band had a few that night. As he relayed to his audience once the concert had resumed, “We was drinkin’ our skulls out…We said, ‘Bartender, someone tried to blow us up tonight.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Son, son, are you loose?’” And “are you loose” was to become the most repeated call of the night. In the years and decades that followed, fans would show up to concerts with poster signs reading “Are you loose?” anytime Springsteen returned to Milwaukee.

After Midnight

The MPD and Daydream Production’s security team worked seamlessly together that evening, thoroughly investigating the space and securing its safety before allowing the concert to resume at midnight as promised. As midnight approached and fans congregated outside the marquee once more, the crowd had, if anything, grown in size.

“We had such great seats, we were like eighth row center at the beginning of the concert,” recalled audience member Ken Wilson. “By the time we got back to the theater we were forced to be kind of off toward the back, off to one side. But hell… it was great. To my way of thinking, it was the best concert I ever saw.”

As the audience filed back into the theater, claiming whatever seats they could find, the energy was high. When asked about how everyone had managed to navigate the disruption to the show, Reitman said, “It was about as smooth as it could get. It was like almost everybody came back, you know… and when they (Springsteen and band) came back they really came back. They were incredible.”

Whether the bomb scare call had been made with the intent to rattle Springsteen or Daydream Productions, or whether it was just some random prank, was never discovered.

But despite being rattled, there was never any question that the show would resume. Springsteen’s commitment to his audience would overcome the scare.

“Bruce wanted to go back and play the concert. He wasn’t going to cancel,” said Patton. “They came back and did one of the most memorable shows of his career.”

“I’m sure they were happy to get out of Milwaukee in one piece,” said McElrath, who said that Springsteen and band members still identify him as “one of the bomb-scare guys.”  “But they always came back, and they played Milwaukee and Madison a lot.”

Half Hour Encore

As the second set began and the band dove into song, Springsteen regaled his audience with a tale of suspense. “We ran back to the hotel… I was shaking, my knees were weak, I couldn’t see straight… and that’s when it happened, that’s when it happened. It got very serious for a minute. I sat back, I seen what was coming. I took a big gulp, my knees started shaking, my heart started beating faster than it ever had,” and then he threw himself into Chuck Berry’s “Little Queenie,” and kept the rock and roll momentum going for the next two hours, closing the epic performance out with a “super-loose, high energy, fourth gear running of “Rosalita,” and coming back for a half-hour encore.

“It was great,” said McElrath. “Every song they knew, I think they played.”

“Yeah, the bomb scare show, that was a show to remember,” said Reitman.

Three weeks before Springsteen appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek magazines on the same day (Oct. 27 1975), catapulting him to stardom, he would grace the cover of Milwaukee’s Bugle American. “It’s amazing at this point in time—we were way out ahead on Bruce Springsteen,” said Patton. “We did a huge spread on him … It was a turning point.”

Perhaps even more remarkably, Springsteen and the band continue to wow audiences today. Those in attendance at the concert that night at the Uptown Theater continue to revel and reminisce about the event today. “It’s still one of the most wacky shows I’ve ever seen,” said Patton.  As he wrote in 1975, “This was one of those moments. No one puts out for his audience the way this guy does, no one. The band has all the class of that great American institution, The Band and they’re just as tight. Springsteen is a genius.”