Rick Springfield Hates Everyone

So we, that is to say my sister and I, go to the New York State Fairgrounds to take in the local color and to see The Man....nay....The Legend perform in concert. Yes. Rick "Don't call me Bruce" Springfield. We got there an hour early, cuz let's face it...we knew we would be fighting a throng of horny housewives and lonely people who couldn't get a date on a calendar. We settle for some seats towards the back and as I sit down and settle in, that is when I notice (DEAR GOD!) that the heavyset 55+ year old woman sitting in front of me has...perhaps the worst case of dandruff I have ever seen. I mean her shoulders looked like the snowy caps of the Himalayan Mountains. ::shudder:: To distract myself from the dry heave inducing scene in front of me....I scanned the stage for any signs of life. I wanted to know if they were close to coming being ready to get the show going so I could get out of there and delouse myself.
The tech was on stage testing guitars and that is when it occurred to me. How far down the music business ladder do you have to be to work as Rick Springfield's guitar tech. Seriously. Does this guy have to fight back an urge to nibble on the barrel of a gun every night at around 7:30pm? Sheesh. If I were him I would be tuning the guitar behind the drum stand! "Matt? Is that YOU tuning Rick Springfield's guitar?" "Uh no...noooooo. My name's Arjun. I uh...just moved here from the Punjab Province...." The tech gets done with the guitars and then it's time for the show! Not really! Some guy comes out and wants to talk about some insurance company....I think they must have been sponsors or some crap. The guy practically blows his load on these people and wants us to know that the workers are ALL LOCAL. All the money comes in and is paid out in New York! woo hoo. First off...the claim of everyone living in New York would mean more if, say, we lived on the border of the tri-state area...but we're smack dab in the middle of the state....what....Like someone is going to commute from Minnesota? Then the guy calls out one of our senators. Yes! Finally some star power! He of course verbally masturbates over all the different foods available at the Fair and then he says something about how New York has the best cheese....or something....I don't know...he was trying for a rallying cry from the crowd..so i shouted back "And the highest taxes! YYYYEEEAAHHHHH!!! WHOOOOOO!!!" to which I instantly became the idol o' millions (Sam Millions....he delivers my mail). And then the other douche tool comes back out and introduces the woman to one side of the stage whom is responsible for the sign language tonight. I...what? Sign... language?

Is it me? Am I taking crazy pills or something? Why the fuck would anyone with a hearing disability take in a concert? It's not like you'll get a cool visual show like at a Pink Floyd show or anything....But I digress. So anyway....the douche tool leaves the stage and then the tech comes out and places some wrapped up bouquets of flowers on the stage off to one side. Groan. Don't tell me he is going to give them to the ladies...LAMEST MOVE EVER. ....or so I thought until the screen turned on and there is a camera shot of someone waking up Rick Springfield in a hotel room bed. Um....did someone forget to tell Rick he had a show tonight? Oh. Wait. *PHEW* It's just a commercial......for the Rick Springfield and Friends cruise. I only wish I could make up something that funny. By popular demand, last year's musical guest is coming back....Richard Marx! ...At this point the question begging to be asked during the advertised Q&A Session that comes with the cruise is...."Mister Marx, after we get off the boat are you going to be looking for another agent?". Heh. Nooooo. The cruise is not that bad. I mean Richard Marx is not the only star power on the boat...hell no....there's also some guy from like....Guiding Light! Yeah...not even the soap Rick was on....a different one. Like why the fuck would a fan of music give a shit? Ok, I will say there is also a guy from General Hospital too...so there. That cements it. We'll throw Mark Goodman in the mix too.....How this guy can host the shows based on music from one time period for almost 30 years without stepping in front of a moving bus I'll never know. The icing on the cake....Rick is going to perform in concert the entire Working Class Dog album IN IT'S ENTIRETY...FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. Ok I would like to see that. >:) But on a Rick Springfield cruise...uh no. I suddenly have an image of there being a back door to fame and that Rick is one cruise or free state fair show away from having one foot out that door and the other on a banana peel....

Anyway, the commercial is over and then they start showing camera shots from the crowd. One pudgy woman was wearing a Rick Springfield silk screen shirt with Rick's face on it...which made me comment "SOMEbody's sleeping alone tonight". Then they started zooming in on hands in the crowd...hands holding up Rick Springfield memorabilia....which of course there isn't any so they instead held up old albums and 8 track tapes. "Finally!" said the lonely guy in the audience...."A use for this Rick Springfield 8-Track tape that I can't play but held onto all these years for nostalgic reasons! I'm not a total loser after all!" (News flash son...YOU ARE) (and you probably live with your parents still)

Anyway....that is my review.

Oh shit! I forgot to talk about the show! Well...at about 8:30pm I commented to the crowd, who at this time are hanging on my every comedic gem, that someone should tell Rick Springfield that he is not famous enough to keep me waiting. Well apparently he heard me because out he comes...looking pretty good for his age...and just TEARS UP THE STAGE with the classics we all came to hear him play!!!! Ok in reality he came tearing out and ripped through two songs that I have never heard before off his new-ish album from a couple months ago. Now the music sounded good. I will say that. His guitarist, drummer and keyboardist all sang along...so the chorus and such sounded really good...and I will also say that he wasn't ever out of breath like alot of the idiots make themselves while performing (I'm talking to you lead singer of Danzig!)....but I really expected him to come out of the gate with something I knew and I was disappointed. The third song in, he played something off of an old album...I forget which...and that is when I noticed something. Rick is strumming the strings of his guitar and yet....I am not hearing anything that remotely sounds like what he was playing coming out of the speakers....like chords and such. (heh...Rick Springfield hates his guitar) I asked the deaf people in the audience what they thought....but they were no help. It really cracked me up that he was doing this...As each song goes by I tune out (no pun intended....well....maybe a little one) everything else and focus on the air guitar he is playing...until finally he takes a break and during the latest switch out of his guitar....which he does after each song...which makes it even FUNNIER....he starts tuning his own guitar..... TING TING TING (turns down volume) ting ting ting (turns up volume) Finally he tosses the guitar back to the tech who brings him another (to which he apologizes for the guitar not working) (Rick Springfield hates his roadie). I'm cracking up and yell "There's something wrong with this guitar Joe! It's plugged in!". Once he got a guitar he liked (one with strings this time)....he actually started playing. I was blown away. The sumbitch can actually play pretty damn good and ripped a solo for a minute or two before launching into, I believe, Crossroads by Clapton. When he does new music or covers...he is serious and spot-on....which I think is nice. When he plays "Jessie's Girl" he goofs off alot because my sis and I think it's because he has played that song in concert literally millions of times and he is sooooo f'ing tired of playing it straight. (Rick Springfield hates his music catalog) He did a nice job on Crossroads though...and later on with Jet by Wings. I silently sent a prayer to God for not letting him play Broken Wings by Mister Mister, as I still haven't forgiven him for recording that.... At one point he has to change his sweat soaked shirt and he asks the ladies to look away. I think he was trying to be funny but it just seemed desperate for attention. I will say that he has aged well. I can give him that much.

He then does some new songs (one, Venus In Overdrive sounded pretty good) and that was when we finally find out what his intentions are for those damnable roses. I thought he was going to do a song about his father (his death and Rick's mourning has been documented in song a few times) and when he does one of those songs, he gives out roses and stuff (so I have heard anyway)....but no. Rick instead picks up a bundle of roses every once in awhile and does the Pete Townsend half-a-windmill move with the roses as his pick. (Rick Springfield hates flowers) It is the saddest thing I have seen thus far....and he does it three or four times. I can just envision the ladies in the front row thinking they are going to get these roses and STRUMMMMMMMMM he makes those roses his bitch and creates a unique sound which probably sounded WAY COOL...or would have had the sound been turned up on his guitar....At one point during a song (an oldie he probably didn't care about f'ing around during)...he asks the lady hand signing his lyrics some question...forget what it was...but then he makes a goofy comment about how they (the deaf presumably) are watching her and not him....Real class act that Rick Springfield. (Rick Springfield hates the disabled)

Annnnnnyway...Towards the end he does Don't Talk To Strangers and it turned into the most God awful mess. This is the point in the concert where he does the most dreaded move in any concert going experience.....yes....it's time for the sing-along. *gag* He starts with singing "Don't talk to strangers...baby don'tcha...." and then sticks the microphone into the audience for them to sing back. LAME LAME LAME. But he took it, much to his credit, to a whole 'nuther level of suckitude to which I had to break out my old school Butthead voice and yell "Stop in the name of all that does not suck!". He first yammers on and on with a state trooper about how this week alone, all the people in the audience have a get out of jail free card because....well frick I have no idea why we would have one...but that's just WACKY RICK!! (Rick Springfield hates crime) He then gets a couple girls...and then their grandmother to sing the line...annnnd then goes into the audience to do it again for what seems like 20 minutes...annnnd then he is finally back onstage...........so why not bring some of today's youth up there! YEAH! He assembles about 15 kids....all under age ten or eleven (Rick Springfield hates teenagers) and then someone hands him a mini pink acoustic guitar. Rick, knowing right when to deadpan a line says (after attempting to play it while holding three microphones), "Does this make me look gay?" to which the crowd laughed hysterically......I am like...am I the only one who finds the fact that he is cracking gay jokes in front of 15 KIDS alittle odd? (Rick Springfield hates queers) So he gives them all a hug after they sing for him and boots them off stage (Rick Springfield hates kids) and finishes the song. After that he is gone...only to reappear to do Jessie's Girl (as if we actually believed he wouldn't come back to play his biggest hit). When he left after the encore, we left too....even though the synthesizer was still making a humming noise, which as you know is the international sign that they will be back for a second encore...but enough was enough. That Don't Talk To Strangers But Make Them Sing For A Half Hour song really took the joy out of watching him perform to the point that I just couldn't stick around for another song or two...which makes me end this review with just one more thing. (Rick Springfield hates ME)