I got a call out of the blue last week from a musician friend - "Do you want to go to a show tonight? One of our friends backed out and I've got a ticket you can have for free..."
"Who's playing?" I asked.
"Aaah", he said hesitantly, "Rick Springfield"
"Rick Springfield??!!?!" Visions of "Jesse's Girl", General Hospital, screaming girls came into my head.
"My wife is a big fan but he's actually really good" my friend said sheepishly.
But being an open-minded kind of guy, I thought "Why not?" . If nothing else there would be many women at the show. I accepted his invitation.
It was for the most part a great show. The weakest parts for me were his big hits. Everything else he performed was cool as hell. It was just him and his guitars(with some minimal backing tracks he put togother on about 2/3 of the songs. Although his acoustic playing was serviceable, he is quite a great electric rock guitarist. He also played convincing silde dobro on an old Delta blues song. He told many funny stories about getting high with Todd Rundgren, playing in Vietnam when he was a teen during the war, and many others. He did a kick-ass version of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well". The guy is 65 but looks half his age and plays with fire and energy.
I even bought his latest CD, "Songs For The End Of The World" for $10 when leaving the theater. I'm very impressed with it, high energy and "modern" sounding without being contrived.
Who would have thought?
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