“Rock and Roll Future”: In 1974, Bruce Springsteen Caused a Spiritual Awakening for Jon Landau

In 1974, Bruce Springsteen was an up and coming 24-year-old, having put out his debut album Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., the year before. At a stop in Boston, he opened for Bonnie Raitt, who insisted he play his full two-hour set. In a rare move for an opening act, he did just that, marking this as a turning point in his fledgling career.

In probably any other circumstance, this wouldn’t be significant. Certainly not in today’s world, where fans are more likely to complain about an opener playing longer than a half hour. However, this move by Springsteen helped showcase his skills and catapulted him to burgeoning stardom.

That’s because rock critic Jon Landau was in the audience for this particular show. At the time, Landau was working for Boston-based The Real Paper. In his review of the show he went on about his disillusionment with music, but something seemed to happen that night at Harvard Square Theatre.

Future Producer Jon Landau Writes Glowing Review of Bruce Springsteen in Boston Paper

Landau began his review with a reflection on his past in relation to music, starting in college and touching on his various writing endeavors. The piece goes on for far too many paragraphs before he gets to the actual Springsteen show, but such is often the way with writers.

For Landau, Bruce Springsteen’s opener seemed to alter his brain chemistry. As he wrote at the time, “I saw my rock’n’roll past flash before my eyes. And I saw something else: I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.”

Springsteen played his two-hour set and inadvertently made Landau want to be his friend. Eventually, Landau would become Springsteen’s long-time producer and manager.

“[C]an anyone really be this good; can anyone say this much to me, can rock’n’roll still speak with this kind of power and glory?” Landau posited. “And then I felt the sores on my thighs where I had been pounding my hands in time for the entire concert and knew that the answer was yes.”

Overall, the show led to a spiritual and creative awakening for Jon Landau. Clearly, Bruce Springsteen is just that good.

“Last Thursday, I remembered that the magic still exists and as long as I write about rock, my mission is to tell a stranger about it,” Landau wrote, adding, “just as long as I remember that I’m the stranger I’m writing for.”

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