1976-04-09 Reid Athletic Center, Hamilton, NY

Scheduled: 21:00 Local Start Time ??:?? / End Time ??:??

Info & Setlist | Venue

19-song set includes "Blinded By The Light". "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" features an extended mariachi-style introduction and a snippet of "Theme From Shaft" in the midsection. A surprise concert for the university students, arranged the week before and announced on April 5 with tickets going on sale the same day, just after students returned from Spring Break. Tickets were initially only available to Colgate students, an additional 600 tickets went on sale to the general public the night of the show. Held in Starr Hockey Rink at the University's Reid Athletic Center. Despite almost selling out, the event was a run at a loss for the University with Springsteen's $15,000 fee added to the costs of publicity, rented seats, and generators, since Colgate's facilities could not provide the power required for sound and lights. Total costs to the Social Committee was $20,000, the most ever paid out for a concert at Colgate at the time. According to the Colgate Maroon, committee officials felt the return justified the expense.

David Vallieres	I was at the Colgate concert. I lived in Utica (near Hamilton), was just 18 and loved Bruce's songs… it was an incredible performance. I can't remember how many encores he came back for but is at least 10… he just coming back and back. One of the best concerts I ever saw.
Don Freedman	My first. Made all the more incredible by comparison because I had see the anemic Peter Frampton show two days earlier at which he more or less replicated his Frampton Comes Alive disc. While Bruce blew the roof off the hockey rink at Colgate. Would give anything to relive that cold night.
Lin Watt Doyle	My first Springsteen concert. I was a freshman at Colgate which is in Hamilton, NY, a small and very remote town in upstate NY. He had been on the covers of Time and Newsweek the previous fall so for him to actually come to Hamilton, NY was HUGE. Pretty much everyone knew who he was by April of 1976 but I had arrived in the fall of 1975 as a freshman with 2 of his albums! (I grew up in NJ). I thought I was pretty hot stuff. And I've seen him maybe 7 or 8 times over the years, most recently at The Wrecking Ball tour at Fenway Park on 8/15/2012. And even though I was 55, it was as if I was still an 18-year-old Colgate Freshman.
Paul Leonard	A great show! My second Bruce show, with great versions of Incident on 57th Street and Sandy. At one point later in the show, Bruce's Telecaster guitar wasn't working and he had to borrow one of Miami Steve's Stratocasters. Bruce said "Steve, this guitar stinks!" and Steve said "That's why I don't use it."
Vicky Ludwig	I was at the Colgate show. Really small venue. I thought he was kind of AM radio, but the show was amazing and I went out and bought his albums.

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