In honor of Rick playing in my hometown last night (no I was not there, as I don’t live there anymore), I thought it might be fun to write about my first time seeing him in concert.  It was September 2, 1984, and I was just shy of my fourteenth birthday.   Rick played Pine Knob Amphitheater, in Clarkston, MI.

I had insanely high hopes for my first Rick Springfield concert. I had zero idea of what to expect standing in a venue along with 20,000 other fans, but I was pretty sure that Rick would sense that his kindred spirit had somehow arrived on the scene (despite a: being 21 years his junior, b: him being off and on with someone I’d read about in People Magazine named Barbara and c: me being a minor) and that light would appear from above and suddenly we would connect on a very spiritual level.

No, I’m not exaggerating.

We entered the gargantuan amphitheater, which was miles wide (or so it seemed). A huge area ringed the seats for lawn seating, and blankets were being set up in the areas with the best sight views. The lawn was impossibly far away from the stage, I thought, why would anyone even bother? But there were hundreds of people already staking out their spots near the edges. Hm.

There were even more seats than I had imagined in my minds eye trying to prepare myself for the concert. My heart sank. How would he ever find me with so many people here? The rows started at ZZ, meaning 52nd row (26 plus 26). I lightened; Row M couldn’t possibly be all that bad, then. We descended down the ramp towards our seats. Lower, lower, and lower. The security stopped us often to make sure that we were in an area we had tickets to be in; if you had seats in the nether regions, you weren’t even allowed closer to the stage.

Finally, we arrived at Row M. It was close in comparision to the many rows behind us. Still, I thought, thirteenth row in a place this large was still miles away from the stage. However, our seats were right on the center aisle. The sight line was fantastic. Even if someone tall stood up in front of me, I could inch out into the aisle to get a better view.

I bought a tour program that night and still have it to this day. I scanned it for photos for the first rs.net website in 1996.

The wait seemed interminable. But finally, the lights started going down and the pulsating sounds of electric guitars and synthesizers heralded the arrival of the man we’d all been waiting for. I slowly turned my gaze behind me; the crowd was quivering, and immense. I’d never seen so many people in one place in all of my life.

I closed my eyes for a second, and waited for the world to change.

Rick played all of the hits that the crowd wanted him to that night: Affair of the Heart, Living In Oz, Souls, Human Touch, Don’t Talk To Strangers, even Love is Alright Tonite and Jessie’s Girl. But as the songs played on, and I stood staring in awe at the man I’d idolized, I found myself…descending.

I should have been happy. I should have been dancing and singing and enjoying the live music and the show. The show was intense, Rick hardly stopping to speak to the crowd, just going song after song and looking beautiful. I could see him clearly from my spot in the thirteenth row, right there on the aisle, an empty expanse of space right between from him to me. This was my first rock concert, and I was sharing it with my best friend. We were in great seats in a great venue.

I’d thought that once I was in the same space as Rick that he would somehow find me in the crowd. He’d be drawn to me somehow, that fate would somehow show him the way to me in the crowd. I know that sounds like absolute insanity now, but when you’re fourteen years old, that kind of thing seems possible and real to you. As the songs played on and I realized that Rick was never going to venture out into the crowd, was never going to even realize I existed, that I was there in the same place and time as him, I started to hate the show. I hated the vapid girls that were crowding past me to get closer for the encore. I hated the fact that there were thousands of people just like me here. I wasn’t special. I wasn’t unique. He was never going to find me. He was never going to know I existed. There was nothing here. Nothing special. Nothing that made me separate from the rest of the girls here.

Of all the RS shows I’ve been to since then, my first one was the one I enjoyed the least.  Isn’t that messed up?

My mother had a thing against MTV.  It was weird, because we had HBO and sometimes they would show all manner of R ratedness, and she didn’t seem concerned at all about trying to block that from our impressionable eyes when she wasn’t at home.  But she somehow took issue with tight leathered, bare chested young men singing about sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Me, I didn’t see it that way.  Even though these days I’m rather shocked when I listen to the lyrics of some of my favorite songs from back then, the videos for them were generally pretty clean and always seemed to tell a story.  Back in those days MTV just ran music videos all day long; there weren’t any of those crazy shows on then taking up hours of valuable time away from valuable video watching.

I took this shot of the TV one Friday Night with my Polaroid camera. Hello, 1980s.

My friend Dawn and I started hanging out at her place on Friday nights to watch videos instead.  We liked our MTV, but we discovered that the Atlanta station WTBS broadcast a show called Friday Night Videos.  It was like MTV on a regular station, and they ran videos from 8pm until the wee hours…four or five in the morning.  And the great news for us was, her parents had started going up North on Friday nights overnight, leaving us two eighth grade girls home alone.   I’m not sure if my mother realized that so many of my sleepovers at Dawn’s house were completely unsupervised; we certainly didn’t advertise it.  Other kids might have taken advantage of the lack of supervision, but the worst thing we did was generally raid her father’s half dollar collection to get a few small pizzas delivered.

Our rule was simple; we’d stay up until we’d seen Rick Springfield.  He was so popular in those days, it was a sure thing that you’d see one of his videos at some point in the six or seven hours we’d stay up watching.  We’d eat our pizzas and keep talking and writing and commenting on the music videos we saw.  Neither of us liked Yes or the Cars videos, even though the music wasn’t bad.  We both thought Cyndi Lauper was weird.  Neither of us were too impressed with Duran Duran even though everyone seemed to be so crazy for them.  We both liked Prince.

And we’d stay up that way until the wee hours of the morning, most Friday nights, just talking to each other and understanding each other.  At some point we’d hear the car door slam, the iconic opening of Rick Springfield’s “Souls” video (my favorite), or the familiar 1, 4, 5 chord sequence that opened up “Jessie’s Girl” and we ‘d move close to the tiny (by today’s standards) black and white screen.  We’d both ooh and ah over the video, what did it all mean (do you see the writing on the brick wall back there?  What does it say?), talk about how one day we’d finally meet Rick and his band and he’d see in us the kindred spirits of like souls.  But mostly, we would enjoy the calm and peace that came from both of us escaping from the real problems that were all around us, and the comfort that came in not doing so alone.

OK, so there definitely is a story to tell here.

For fifteen years this site has tried to be many things to many people, for many reasons. I used to pride myself on getting out the Rick Springfield news quickly and accurately, answering emails and updating sites objectively and (at least I thought so at the time) professionally. But my perspective is definitely in the rear view mirror these days, things are taking on a different feel. No one needs another site to check Rick’s tour dates, the latest news or to find another concert photograph. There’s no reason for this site to compete with those sites. I guess what I am saying is that this site isn’t for you any more. No, this one I think is for me.

So if you’re landing here wondering where the site you were used to is, I’ll tell you. This is a new site, still a Rick Springfield fan site, but it’s also the story of him told through my eyes. I’m going to put back some of the things that used to be on www.rickspringfield.com and www.rickspringfield.net…things that should be archived somewhere. But there are also stories to tell. There will be stories, too.

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Amy, and I am a Rick Springfield fan. Like many die hard Rick Springfield fans, Rick definitely did “star in the story of my life”. From my teen years where I yearned to meet him, to my twenties when I actually did meet him, to my thirties when I was lucky enough to work for him, there’s a lot to tell.

It all started for me with a small television, the “Souls” video and my suburban Detroit self looking for affirmation. On the internet, though, it all started here, in this webspace. And so here is where it continues on…still…fifteen years later.