June 18 2010: I'm a Screamng Thirteen Year Old

San Mateo, CA
San Mateo County Event Center

June, 1982 -- Flush with cash from my eighth grade graduation, I make my mom take me to the mall so I can hit Musicland. I have enough cash so that I can buy not one, not two, but THREE new records. Woo hoo was I loaded! I pick up Paul McCartney's Tug of War, Journey's Escape, and Rick Springfield's Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet. Thus begins the foundation of my music collection....

June, 2010 -- Time just flies by and by now I've seen Paul McCartney at least a half dozen times, Journey too many times to count, but ah.. Rick Springfield... nary a once. But, lookie here, he's playing the San Mateo County Fair on a Friday night. Ten bucks for a flashback to the early 1980s and junior high -- why not?!

Now, I have no problem going to shows by myself, but this one... this one just screamed "girls night out." And after a bevy of emails and text messages and varied changing plans, I wound up going to the show with my good friend Mary who picks me up after work and off to the fair. Being a GA show, we got in about an hour before show time and grabbed a couple of seats as close to the front as we could (probably about 20 rows back) and camp out -- taking turns going for food. Looking around, as expected, there were lots of groups of women in their 40s out for a fun, light hearted night.

Show starts right on time at 7:30 and out comes Rick and his band and the crowd gets up on their feet. My first thought... "Wow, does he look good or what?!" Let's get serious for a minute here... back in '82 I bought McCartney because he was a legend, Journey for the songs, and Rick 'cause he was eye candy! Sure, I loved the music and "Jessie's Girl" was one of my favorite tunes, but oh the ever so dreamy Dr. Noah Drake... siiiiiigggghhhh.... So the music, obviously, was secondary to my 13-year old hormones. 28 years later... well, he's older to be sure, but has aged very VERY well... (another siiiigggggghhhh....)

The set list was filled with the old hits, some new tunes, and a sprinkling of covers. My personal highlight from the set was "Love Is Alright Tonite" -- which was probably my favorite of his hits and the song that always got me dancing in the living room when I played Working Class Dog (a gift from my dear cousin Laura who couldn't join us at the last minute!) All these years later, I was dancing and singing like I was 13 all over again. I did fairly well at remembering the lyrics to the old songs, some of which I hadn't heard in 25 years (having listened to the two albums I own earlier in the week, I was covered on some tunes), but had to hum along at a couple of points because they weren't all coming back to me. At a couple of points in the show, he climbed out into the crowd and stood on the seats and sang and played guitar. I must say he's a pretty decent guitarist. Most of the time he's handling the rhythm duties, but he pulled off a couple of nice solos and a pretty decent cover of "Crossroads." The handful of "newish" tunes were pretty good too and worked well in the set, but of course, everyone was really there to hear the old '80s hits.

As the show was winding down, he came out into the audience again during "Human Touch" and worked his way down the center section and wound up two rows behind me and across the aisle. Well, to head back up to the stage, he crossed the aisle, hopped up on a chair in the row behind me and started climbing forward. ZOINKS! I was about 3 chairs away as he climbed over into my aisle. My inner 13 year old dropped in a dead faint!

The main set closed out, naturally, with "Jessie's Girl" which he teased by saying "We don't play that any more." (Yeah, right, like anyone would believe that!) After he headed off stage, Mary asked me "Are there usually encores at these shows?" I told her the ones I'd seen always had them, but I couldn't think of what the encore might be this time. Rick and the band appear once again and do a cover of "Wild Thing" and close out with "Kristina."

All in all, a fun night out, and a good way to start my summer concert season (albeit a couple of days late since the U2 show I was supposed to see on Wednesday has been postponed for a year!)