Cheers to 6 years

Yesterday marked the sixth anniversary of this blog. Six years of celebrating Rick Springfield music, acting and fandom.

Here’s a recap of some of the highlights of RS activity in the first five years, as listed in last year’s anniversary post:

• “Ricki and the Flash“
• The year of “Human Touch” (2016)
• The country-inspired Rocket Science album
• Videos for “Light this Party Up,” “Down,” “Land of the Blind” and “The Voodoo House“
• The blues-inspired Snake King album
• Orchestrating My Life album
• Symphony performances in Germany as part of the Rock Meets Classic tour
• U.S. performances of RS’s hits with a full symphony orchestra
• Stripped Down shows with Richard Marx (though his Stripped Down shows have existed for a few years)
• A number of live-streamed concerts
• The iHeart80s concert
• My sons singing with Rick Springfield
• Periscope videos
• Instagram stories (his drummer Jorge Palacios often posts soundcheck and concert footage from his vantage point behind the drums)
• The ’80s cruise featuring RS as “the captain” (aka the cruise host)
• Appearances on “True Detective,” “Supernatural,” “American Horror Story: Cult,” “Sideswiped,” ” The Goldbergs.”
• Lots and lots of interviews for all the above
• Hundreds of concerts that generated hundreds of photographs and videos
• Knowledge of Rick Springfield’s extensive “Star Wars” collection (recent reports indicate that he’s sold most of it.)
• The knowledge that RS was still struggling with serious bouts of depression and all the people RS has helped by speaking about his struggles.

This past year has been different than any others since the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world, halting life as we know it. Touring stopped and all the new concert footage RS fans have been lucky to enjoy on a regular basis over the past few years ceased. His big tour with Chicago that was supposed to happen this summer was cancelled, as well as his tour with Zoot in Australia (which has now been rescheduled to 2021). The fan trip was postponed indefinitely.

There have been some silver linings in this, as RS partnered with Vance DeGeneres for a songwriting video series that resulted in two new songs (and videos), “The Wall Will Fall” and “Welcome to Your Bright New World.”

Also, RS has held regular happy hours (half-hours) with fans on Zoom, where we’ve learned that he’s almost finished with “World on Fire,” the sequel of “Magnificent Vibration,” and it’s scheduled to come out on Audible in October. He also formed a band, The Locusts, with his former bassist Matt Bissonette and drummer Gregg Bissonette and they recorded an album and will soon be releasing songs. If you watch the happy hour videos (available on his Facebook page), you can learn more RS trivia such as his favorite places in the world (Tahiti and Italy) and that he is scheduled to be a judge on an upcoming mystery singing game show, “I Can See Your Voice.”

He’ll also perform a live invite-only Labor Day weekend performance for those who post a picture of their own paradise that features Beach Bar Rum, a line of spirits with Sammy Hagar. (Haven’t found anywhere local that carries the rum, though it can also be ordered online.)

Returning to the past year, here are some other highlights:

• Fans raised $34,170 for the 2019 birthday campaign in honor of RS’s 70th birthday. The funds went to Linda Blair’s Worldheart Foundation, which helps rescue dogs.
• RS started playing piano at some of his concerts.
• RS performed to raise funds for the wildfires in Australia and also sold some guitars and T-shirts to raise funds to help the animals hurt in the fires through Steve Irwin’s Wildlife Warriors.
• RS announced his venture with Sammy Hagar for Beach Bar Rum.
• The premiere of the documentary “Orchestrating My Life,” about the making of RS’s CD featuring students from the Santa Monica High School Orchestra. (Still no word on when that will be available to view elsewhere.)
• RS was featured on the show “The Song: Recorded Live at TGL Farms.”
• After quarantines and lockdowns began once the pandemic struck (his last live in-person concert was March 7, at a Rock the Casa benefit concert), RS started doing fun videos about how to play Jessie’s Girl “Human Touch” and “Love Somebody” parodies (“No Human Touch” and “Glove Somebody) then next came the songwriting series I mentioned above.
• After writing that last item, I just realized that the last concert he did this year was on what would have been my mom’s 75th birthday. On her 70th birthday, I met RS briefly after a concert. (RS is now 70.) I know that’s all totally irrelevant to anyone else reading this, but that’s kinda weird, right? That was the day I slipped him a note with this blog address on it in hopes he would look at it. What if instead I wrote “Five years from tonight will be your last concert in 2020 because a few days later, the country will shut down due to a worldwide pandemic.” He probably wouldn’t have believed it. (He probably would have also been surprised to hear that his sequel to “Magnificent Vibration” – which is about a plague – wouldn’t be coming out for five more years and that it would be released during a worldwide pandemic.)

Speaking of birthdays, RS fans would by now have had lots of opportunities to sing him happy birthday in concerts since the celebrations typically begin in June. Since we can’t do that in person this year, here’s a clip from last year.

Hope he’s feeling that birthday love headed his way, as many of his longtime fans have had his birth date etched on their minds for a few decades.

If you got to the bottom of this post, thanks for reading.

Be well.