From our May/June '17 issue: For more than two decades, the Bryce Jordan Center has brought the biggest acts in music to Happy Valley—and Bernie Punt ’84 Com has been around for all of them. We asked the longtime BJC sales and marketing manager to share his best backstage memories—nearly all of which were fit to print.
The Jordan Center hosted its first concert on Jan. 6, 1996, headlined by Pittsburgh-based Rusted Root. Punt was hoping the show would make an impression on national promoters curious about this new venue in the hills of Central Pennsylvania. “This tour was doing 8,000, 9,000 a night, and we sold out—11,452. That caught people’s attention.” Three nights later, the arena hosted Alabama, the first of dozens of big country shows at the BJC.
The KISS bassist was frustrated before a show because his phone wasn’t getting reception (the bowels of the arena were notoriously unfriendly to cell service). Punt offered his phone, which Simmons borrowed to call home and lecture his son over some unknown household issue. “He’s in full costume, makeup and everything, just doing total dad stuff,” Punt says. “Then he gave the phone back to me and asked if he owed me any money for the call.”
Landing the former Beatle in 2015 was a coup, one helped by former BJC stage manager Mark Shulman ’96 A&A, now an executive at industry giant AEG Live. To secure the booking, the arena’s management team had to sit for a four-hour interview with McCartney’s representatives, who flew in for the occasion. Among Punt’s ideas to promote the show: “Welcome Paul” banners on the runway at University Park Airport, which McCartney saw when he landed.
Famously private on the road, “The Boss” politely declined the BJC’s traditional jersey presentation, photo ops, or meet-and-greets before the show. “It’s more like a family gathering backstage, a really cool vibe,” Punt says. Springsteen and his band also travel with their own catering; Punt says a healthy diet on the road likely helps explain how Bruce is still going after four decades of marathon shows.
The BJC was designed with only one “star” dressing room, which made things tricky when these co-headlining superstars came to town. But when Joel arrived at the arena first and saw the fancier dressing room, he told staff, “This has Elton written all over it. I’ll take the locker room.”
The Seattle band wrapped the first leg of its Riot Act tour in May 2003 with an epic set that ranked at the time as their longest-ever show: It lasted nearly three and a half hours. Punt recalls their tour manager backstage, checking his watch and growing increasingly frantic as the band played one encore, then a second, and then a third. Finally, he threw his hands up and declared, “I guess we need to book rooms for the night.”
Punt describes his former boss, then-BJC general manager Bob Howard, as a “huge Cher fan. He’d been in the business 30 years and always wanted to meet her. But he wasn’t the type of guy who was backstage getting pictures with the artists.” When Cher returned in 2003, shortly before Howard retired, Punt put in a request with the singer’s management, and she agreed to say hello. Diva reputation aside, he says, “She couldn’t have been sweeter.”
The New York rapper once bragged about having “made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can,” and he takes that allegiance seriously. Before his first BJC appearance in 2009, Jay-Z was late taking the stage because he was in his dressing room watching a playoff game that went into extra innings. “I do recall that the Yankees won,” Punt says. “After that, the show was even better.”
West is famous for demanding complete control of his art, a trait that extends to how his image is used—even in a backstage snapshot: “When we took the jersey picture, he wanted to know what kind of camera we were using, the aperture, lighting, everything. He even had to approve the shot.”
The country legend holds the arena record with 11 total shows: a five-night stint in 1997 followed by a six-night residency in 2015. He might also be the most popular among BJC staff—proof, Punt says, that “nice guys actually finish first.”
When the famously reclusive Purple One played the BJC in 2004, the rules were simple: No autographs. No pictures. No interaction, period. “We weren’t even allowed to be backstage,” Punt says. “We really weren’t even supposed to look at him.”
The gift of a customized Penn State jersey is a BJC tradition. Most artists agree to pose in their new shirts; a few, like rapper Kendrick Lamar (bottom, second from left), wear their blue and white onstage.
When Yanni (bottom, far left) came to town, Punt asked a BJC usher originally from Greece to handle the jersey presentation. The Greek pianist was impressed: “In all my years of touring the U.S., I’ve never had someone speak Greek to me backstage.”
If they’d never played the BJC, country power couple Faith Hill and Tim McGraw (bottom, far right) might never have fallen in love.
