Thinking back to October 2015

Five years ago today I was in Las Vegas getting ready to see Rick Springfield and Loverboy perform at The Joint in Hard Rock Hotel. It was an extra special RS week, as I had seen him earlier that week in Phoenix at the Arizona State Fair. (I had purchased the Vegas concert tickets and plane tickets before the Arizona show, a few minutes from my house, was announced.)

My two older sons, who were 7 and 9 at the time, got to sing “Don’t Talk to Strangers” with him at the fair, which was a huge thrill!

Can you imagine? Two Rick Springfield concerts in one week?! (And I’d seen him twice earlier that year – a full-band show and a Stripped Down show – and got to briefly meet him afterward both times.)

As painful as it is to fans that there are no RS concerts on the horizon to look forward to, it must be even more difficult for RS to not have any planned. He looked so happy to be up on stage for the recent Sammy Hagar birthday bash on Catalina Island. After touring pretty much nonstop for 20 years, I imagine that this eight-month hiatus from performing has been difficult. Hopefully he’s taking solace in the knowledge that all the fans who attended those concerts are missing him and his shows. (This past week I had a medical procedure where I was knocked out for a little awhile and my last thought before falling asleep was wondering how he was doing. Is that normal?)

Hopefully this is a temporary phase that we are all going through and at some point it will be safe to start having concerts again. This can’t last forever, right?

Meanwhile, our concert memories will have to suffice and maybe RS will be up to sharing some more new music soon because thank goodness we have the technology that allows for him to share when he wants to. (Thinking back to the 1980s when the anticipation was the teen magazines and what new posters and information would be in the next issue and maybe there would be a new video on MTV. We’ve been really lucky these last few years when there’s been so much content to help feed the cravings.)

I thought I’d revisit that happy time of October 2015.

1. That anticipation before a show: “Two weeks from tonight!”
   
2. The gratitude that the favorite rock star of my youth still performs decades later.: ‘Back to the future is now the present.”
   
3. The ability to enjoy concerts from afar, in this case shows at Walt Disney World: “Happiest Place on Earth‘
   
4. An appreciation of sharing RS songs with my kids in advance of their first concert: ‘Greatest Hits’
   
5. The night before the concert
   
6. “My sons got to sing with Rick Springfield!”
   
7. More about the concert: “Concert afterglow”
   
8. A report on the Vegas show: ‘What happened in Vegas’

And that’s that, a really good RS month. Hope this post brought more joy than sadness, we need to hold on to all the joy we can!

Sail-in concert and a sinking casino

In this crazy time, any fun distraction is appreciated, especially when it involves Rick Springfield.

Although his various live tours are all on hold for the moment (full band, solo acoustic, symphony and Zoot concerts), RS recently performed live to film a birthday bash boat-in for his buddy (and rum business partner) Sammy Hagar. They filmed it on Catalina Island in California, where some lucky people got to watch from their boats. The beach party will be featured on a pay-per-view stream this weekend, beginning at 6 p.m. on Oct. 17. To find out how to watch it, visit redrocker.com.

RS also popped up in a video by The Postal Service band in support of HeadCount’s “Make Your Vote Count” campaign.

The scenario in the video is that the band is auditioning over Zoom for new members of the band and those “auditioning” include Huey Lewis, Anne Hathaway and Kenny G, among others.

In its coverage of the video, Paste Magazine named RS the overall MVP of the video:

He really sells the sadness and desperation of a man who lost all of his money on a floating casino in international waters that eventually sank, and now needs a job—any job—to stay afloat himself. Here’s a little reminder that Springfield isn’t just an ‘80s pop legend, but also a pro actor, with multiple movie and TV roles under his belt.

-Paste Magazine

RS’s part in the video comes at 13 minutes in.

With all this talk about boats and sinking ships, I thought I’d end the post with this:

Update on Oct. 16

One more (sinking) boat note: RS’s contribution to a Titanic exhibit on Catalina Island, at the Catalina Museum.

Grammy Award-winning songwriter, musician, actor, and best-selling author, @rickspringfield, is joining us online for our Titanic Exhibition Premiere and Museum Benefit! He is also a lender to the exhibition. pic.twitter.com/pt0t0RXPoe

— Catalina Museum (@CatalinaMuseum) October 14, 2020

$21.771.71 raised for the dogs

Last year, the fans behind the Rick Springfield Birthday Campaign announced that it would be the last year they would conduct the birthday campaign and the 13th annual campaign of 2019 (which celebrated RS’s 70th birthday) exceeded its $20K goal and raised $34,170!

But then, in the middle of a global pandemic, they surprised us all and a few days before RS’s 71st birthday, they announced a shortened five-week campaign to raise funds for the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, which helps rescue dogs. What better birthday present for our favorite rock star than to help dogs, right?

So in a mere five weeks (and prizes that included a private Zoom call with RS and a sketch he drew for the campaign), fans donated $21,771.71! (Funny how the amount donated is his age each year… hmmm.. what a coincidence. 😉)

Way to go, Rick Springfield fans! This brings the total amount raised for charity over the past 14 years to $178,502.23!

(Finally, some much-needed good news!)

The official logo of the campaign, which was also sent as stickers to donors, with a masked Bindi as the mascot. (Or should I say masked-ot? Masked-dog? You choose.)