Written by Darlene Altmann.
Rick Springfield, let’s hear him roar! Boy can he still rock! I was very excited to see Rick Springfield as I have never seen him before and had a major crush on him from the 80’s, and I’m sure many women in the audience was still crushing on the 66 year old rocker/actor. I had a chance to see him perform at the Toronto CNE on Wednesday Aug 26 2015. All seats were filled and only standing room only, pretty impressive for a Wednesday night. Looked like it was going to rain but luck was on our side and the rain clouds blew right past us just when Rick took to the stage! He sang a new song “Light This Party Up” from his new soon to be released album in January 2016 ‘Rocket Science”.
Rick was very excited to play a show in Toronto as the last time he played was in 1982. He won the Best Rock Vocal Male Performance in the same year, and more recently was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Growing up in the 80’s I adored Rick’s music, and watching him on General Hospital and in the movie Hard To Hold. I thought that I would only know a few songs but I knew most of them such as “I’ve Done Everything For You” “Hard To Hold,” and “Human Touch,” to name a few. Rick’s bassist Matt Bissonette is actually Elton John’s bassist! How cool is that? They met back in 1982 when Matt was playing in a Jazz band and decided to investigate into all the screaming he heard. Well it was women screaming for Rick as he was performing at his prime. Said that Rick had changed his life forever and thus changed his style of music. Rick showed the audience that he can change his style of music by belting out the female anthem “Roar” by Katy Perry and surprisingly killed it! The whole audience was singing and clapping, what a positive atmosphere.
The concert was interactive as Rick charged through the audience singing “Don’t Talk to Strangers,” and pulled a 9 year old girl on the audience to sing the chorus with him. He rocked out by smashing a bouquet of roses on his guitar and them throwing them into the audience. Rick would tease the audience with chords of “Jessie’s Girl” and the audience was going nuts.
Finally the encore, everyone was screaming and yelling for Rick, knowing and anxiously awaiting for his most outstanding well known hit “Jessie’s Girl.” Well all of a sudden the screen from the back of the stage turned on and the fictional character Nick Webber from my favourite movie Hot Tub Time Machine was singing Jessie’s girl for a few chords, then they showed other clips of movies and tv shows of actors singing to “Jessie’s Girl,” it was awesome. Then suddenly appeared Rick, right in front of the stage rocking out to “Jessie’s Girl” and he just killed it! I closed my eyes and saw myself back in the 80’s roller skating to my favourite 80’s tune. The boy can still rock it! People were dancing, and smiling and were happy. There was an elderly couple in front of me and her husband in his 70’s was sitting down throughout the whole show, almost jumped out of his chair and started dancing and clapping and looked like he was having an awesome time when “Jessie’s Girl” came on! That was very cool because his wife was surprised and told me that he had a bad back. It certainly didn’t look like it from where I was standing! That is what a Rick Springfield concert is about, happiness, positive energy and having a rockin’ great, time no matter what age you are.
Rick has a new movie out with Meryl Streep called “Ricki and the Flash.” I will definitely take a watch. Hope it doesn’t take another 33 years for him to come back to Toronto.
