When I heard that Rick Springfield was going to play Rick Springfield who goes on a date with Rosanna Arquette’s character on the new YouTube original show “Sideswiped,” I wondered what the scenario would be. After all, as any of his fans know, he’s been married to his wife since 1984 and they have two grown sons. So why would he be on Tinder (or the celebrity version of Tinder, in the case of the show)? He better not be dissing his wife!
Then as soon as I watched it I realized that Rick Springfield wasn’t playing Rick Springfield who has been married since 1984, he was the Rick Springfield rock star character who has a 28-year-old ex-girlfriend and grandchildren. (As far as we know, RS is not a grandfather yet.) Just like the Rick Springfield in “Californication” was the narcissistic Rick Springfield character, not the rock star we all “know” and love.
Does he think of himself as Rick Springfield or Richard Springthorpe? Is “Rick Springfield” the rock star more of an on-stage persona? Many fans have said that in person he’s quieter/shyer than the rock star legend on stage (which makes him even more endearing, right?) How is he at home? All these things are NONE of my business of course, but I still wonder.
Anyway, I loved his character on “Sideswiped,” the vulnerable rock star that isn’t quite over his much younger ex-girlfriend. I enjoyed the character so much more than Dr. Irving Pitlor on “True Detective,” Lucifer on “Supernatural” or the demented Pastor Charles on “American Horror Story.”
I admit I only watched the fourth episode of “Sideswiped” so far, aptly titled “The Rock Star,” but I thought it looks like a cute show and plan to watch more. (Not the same with those other three shows mentioned above. I watch enough horror in the daily news that I don’t enjoy watching fictional horror.) The shows I’ve been watching lately are “Nashville,” which sadly ended this week, and “This is Us,” which will have its last season soon, too. I need to find another show soon so I have something to watch when I fold laundry. Any suggestions?
After last night’s Rick Springfield/Pat Benetar& Neil Giraldo concert was cancelled at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City a few minutes before the show was to start – due to a “technical issue” – guess who turned up playing in the casino bar?
I’m sure the concert’s cancellation was a super bummer for fans who were planning on attending the concert, especially those who traveled far to see him, but hopefully many of them were there to see him perform “Superstitious” with Johnny-O and the Classic Dogs of Love or hang out in the casino with him for a bit.
Apparently Rascal Flatts was playing in a different venue in the hotel that same night, but I haven’t heard anything about RS going in to play “Down” with the band. (He co-wrote that Rocket Science song with Jay DeMarcus, the bassist of Rascall Flatts.)
I’m so glad it’s Friday, as it’s been a long week and my mind is playing tricks on me. How many RS references do you find in this very brief blog post?
Just for fun, here’s what I noticed:
He was going to co-headline the concert with Pat Benetar & Neil Giraldo. Neil Giraldo played guitar on the song “Jessie’s Girl” off of the Working Class Dog album.
There are two references in the name of the band he played with: “Johnny” (“Me & Johnny” off of Living in Oz) and “dogs of love”- well, RS loves dogs.
“Superstitious – somebody recently posted a video of him playing that song during one of the new meet & greets.
As I mentioned above, he co-wrote one of the songs of Rocket Science with one of the guys in the band who was also playing a concert that same night in that same hotel.
The hotel with the “technical issue” (rumor is that it was a problem with the ceiling) is Atlantic City’s newest hotel – and it used to be the Trump Taj Mahal. Not really a RS connection there, I guess, but I thought it was interesting. Maybe there’s a Snake King connection there somewhere.
Here’s a video from earlier in the day that somebody posted on YouTube, of him singing “Under the Milky Way.”
Before I go, here’s a fun interview that came out yesterday: “Rick Springfield talks blues, books and Saturday morning cartoons,” on nuvo.net. He covers a lot here, including what he’s doing with his Star Wars collection and what event he might considering showing up to in disguise.
When I started this blog nearly four years ago, I had no idea what I was going to do with it. More than anything, it was meant to be a way to avoid talking endlessly about my re-discovery of Rick Springfield with my husband and co-workers.
I was so excited to learn that RS was still creating new music and had written books, that I dived right into exploring all of it – along with my teenage fandom years – and this blog gave me a place to share it with (I hoped) others who felt the same way and would find it entertaining instead of annoying.
(Nobody in my real life actually told me I was being annoying, but I started to sense their frozen smile and glazed look if I talked too much about RS so I had to rein it in.)
At the time I had NO idea what a driven person RS was and didn’t know that there was so much more on its way. I thought it was cool that he had released a few albums since “Karma,” which was the last time I had followed his career (between 1998 and 2000, I saw him in concert four times and met him once. That was in addition to seeing him twice in high school back in the ’80s.)
Here’s a recap of his musical work between 2000 and my “re-discovery” in 2014:
2004: “Shock/denial/anger/acceptance” (So many good songs, which I enjoyed only after getting over the reason they were written, since I first heard this CD after reading “Late, Late at Night”)
2005: “The Day After Yesterday” (I still haven’t heard this CD of covers in its entirety)
2007: “Christmas With You” (which I still haven’t heard, except for the song for the soldiers.)
2008: “Venus in Overdrive” (which has become one of my favorite CDs)
2009: “My Precious Little One: Lullabies for a New Generation” (Played it for my kids a few times when they were younger and they always fell asleep by the second or third song, and I mean that as a compliment)
2012: “Songs for the End of the World” – so many great songs, I especially love listening to this while driving, for some reason. I think because the first time I heard it was when I was driving my kids to school and it was so funny to hear their reactions.
In 2014, I had all of this to catch up on and I also read “Late, Late at Night” and “Magnificent Vibration” right away, then listened to “Late, Late at Night” on audiobook. Then I caught up on some of his acting stints, like “Californication” and “Drop Dead Diva.”
Then a few months later, in November 2014, it was announced that RS would be coming to Arizona and I got tickets to my first RS concert in 15 years! So of course I had to go and then ended up meeting him briefly that March after the concert. Then I saw him a few more times over the next couple of years.
But I digress, this post wasn’t meant to be about me and my RS concerts, it’s about the driven rock star. So back to that.
In January 2015, he announced that he was back in the studio recording a new album! That year the live “Stripped Down” show also came out on CD and DVD. The country-infused “Rocket Science” was released the following February. In 2015 and 2016, he was touring with both the full-band show and the solo acoustic show. In 2017, he added a symphony tour – with Rock Meets Classic in Europe. Fans even got to watch the live stream of a show in Germany, which was cool!
Among all his touring, he also wrote and recorded another CD, blues-infused this time, “The Snake King,” which was released in January of this year. This year, he had acoustic shows, full-band shows and symphony shows. (There has also been a movie and several TV roles in the past four years.) Which means there are lots of interviews, photos and videos out there in Cyberspace, including this Morning Mix interview, where RS goes into detail about the symphony shows, which was fun to hear, and we get to learn about MORE upcoming projects (such as this in Fairfax County Times):
Once the tour is over, the singer will be back to his many ventures. He’s working on a rewrite of a follow up to “Magnificent Vibration,” and he’s recording a symphonic record with his best hits and a 40-piece orchestra.
“There will be a new song on that album, and it is light years away from ‘The Snake King,’” he said. “Also, we are rerecording all the hits as they originally sounded so we can put out our own greatest hits. And I am writing for a new record and looking for that next great acting gig.”
A new song! A new Greatest Hits album! New songs for another new record! A new book! So many exclamation point-worthy things on the brink of happening! Also, on July 25 will be the “Sideswiped” show on YouTube.
(Just a reminder to those who handle the fan club – maybe we can get more details about all this stuff there in Rick’s Diary? That would be a nice fan club perk, along with the Meet & Greet contests, which don’t exist yet, but it sure would be nice… Or maybe we all get a chance to sing a duet with RS at a beach-side bar?)
Anyway, see what I mean when I say I can ramble on about RS? But if you’re still reading this, then I’m guessing that you understand so thanks for reading.
In a recent interview on The Eddie Trunk Podcast, RS mentioned that he’ll be putting together a new album of his hits recorded with a symphony – and writing a new song for that. How cool is that?! Fans in Australia will be happy to hear that he’s also talking about a tour in Australia.
Another interesting tidbit mentioned in the interview is that he recently recorded a Spanish version of “Jessie’s Girl” for a musician in Mexico who is putting a “Legends” type of album with musicians who inspired him.
For those who are following the songwriting track of this blog, here’s a video I put together that includes two of the songs that I previously wrote. One was inspired after seeing Rick Springfield in a hotel lobby and the other one, “In the Fifth Row,” was written in advance of a concert that I ended up not being able to attend.
They were written at different times – the first in March 2016 and the second in October 2017 – but they have similar melodies and the same chords and my tickets for the March show were also in the fifth row so it worked to combine the two. (I’m happy to report that I’ve learned several new chords since then so my newer songs don’t all sound the same.)
This week marks two years since I saw Rick Springfield in concert, although I’m hoping to go his show next month when he’s in town. Thanks to those fans who post videos and set list pictures, I ALMOST feel like it hasn’t been so long.
Since many RS fans see multiple shows throughout the year, it’s nice that the band mixes things up now and then.
One song that is apparently back in rotation is “Souls,” which is my favorite song off of “Living in Oz.”
One of the songs he’s been playing is “Voodoo House, my favorite from his newest CD, “The Snake King.”
“Affair of the Heart” is one of my favorites from the 1980s and that’s one that he’ll probably always have to play, so that one is pretty safe, I think.
It’s also great hearing a longer version of “State of the Heart.”
A couple of songs that seem to have moved off the list are “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift and “Roar” by Katy Perry. Although I like both of those songs, I’d much rather hear Rick Springfield songs at a Rick Springfield concert so I won’t miss either of those AT ALL.
Another one I am glad is gone is “I Hate Myself,” which I heard live back in 2015. Although it’s great live, there was something disturbing about hearing hundreds of people shouting “I hate myself.”
One song that he’s played the last few times I saw him that seems to be gone is “I’ll Make You Happy,” from “Shock/Anger/Denial/Acceptance,” which was wonderful live so I will miss that one.
Currently “Our Ship’s Sinking” from “Songs for the End of the World” and “Down” from “Rocket Science” are on the set list of longer shows.
What really would be fun is the type of thing that happens at the fan events – albums in their entirety – but that’s unlikely. Especially from “Venus in Overdrive”because I didn’t go to any shows during those tour years.
I haven’t had any new videos to add lately so thanks to those who have shared theirs!
My Rick Springfield crush 