6am – 12pm
My high-school friend Wendi and I spent the morning at the wharf to wharf race, walking the route and cheering on those of higher physical caliber than ourselves. We walked to the finish line in Capitola and then back to the starting line at the Santa Cruz pier where we rode the roller coasters to adrenaline-pump for the evening what lay ahead.

12pm – 1pm
Ate like we had been let out into society for the first time in our lives.

1pm – 3pm
Beauty rest.

3pm – 5pm
Showers, hair dryers, make-up kits, tiny little outfits. We’re looking great and ready to go meet The Man.

5:15pm
Longs Drugs for fluorescent poster board and sharpies.

5:25pm
Safeway for a bunch of roses.

6pm
In the parking lot of Mountain Winery. We hop out of the car to make our posters that are going to attract The Man to our side of the stage. We are busily coloring in huge black letters reading “Meet Me!” and “You Said You Would!” when we notice a group of women a few parking spaces down from us who are clamoring around one another, applying additional coats of lipstick, and who are in possession of a bucket full of roses. I mean, like a bucket that my dad used to use to wash his Chevy Silverado.

We overhear them talking about going backstage with Rick’s fan club. Fan club?! Of all the crap I went through trying to get backstage, I never even thought about his fan club! Damn! So we buddy up to these ladies and ask them what the scoop is on the fan club. Turns out, none of them were deemed worthy of the fan club, but they hear rumor that there is a special list at the front of concert area for fan club members who will get backstage AND that’s the only way you can get a camera into the place. Hmm.

Then the group spies our pathetic Safeway roses. “Oh,” they sneered. “You brought him roses… Do you know what he does with them?” We showed ourselves as being even more unworthy fans than they by confessing that, no, we had no clue what he does with roses. “Ha,” they called over their shoulder pads as they turned to head to the concert area, “you’ll find out.”

With horrible visions our roses being deflowered by some 80s has-been rocker, we continued making our posters – less fervently than before.

6:30pm
We make our way to the front gate where they search our purses and find – you know it – a camera in mine. They make a fuss and tell me that I can’t have the camera in the concert area and that I will have to hike my butt back to the car and put it away. Not that I was so hell-bent on keeping the camera with me, but I just didn’t want to go back up the long hill I had just come down in my cute, non-functional strappy sandals.

“But I’m with the fan club!” I cry in protest. “They sent out an email that said we could have cameras with us for the backstage visit!”

The ticket-taker looks a little confused for a moment and then calls his boss over. After explaining the situation, his boss, the main ticket-takin’ man, said, “Oh, yes – fan club members can take their cameras in, but they are only to be used during the back stage visit.” Victory! “So, ladies, can I see your back-stage tickets?” Defeat.

“They told me that you would be holding my back stage pass here at the gate for me,” I reply. By this time, Wendi is staring at me like I have two heads. But the main ticket-takin’ man doesn’t even flinch. He reaches directly for an envelope that has back-stage passes in it with a list of names.

“What was your name, miss?” he asks. Now, at this point you have to know that I am my eyes are bulging out trying to see the names on the list so I can tell him that my name is “Susie Rack” or whatever is on the list. But no luck.

“Amy Gardner,” I reply, “there should be an ‘Amy Gardner plus one guest’ on there.” And, though he looks through the list diligently enough, he does not find my name – much to my growing surprise. You see, at this point I am convinced that I am supposed to be on that list and I am becoming indignant about the seeming fact that someone has forgotten to put my name on!

The nice man picks up his walkie-talkie and calls the front ticket booth, trying to find out if they have a different list. No one picks up. “Okay,” he says, “go on in, but don’t take that camera out. I’m really sorry about you not being on the list. When you get in, the ticket booth is on your right. Ask there about a backstage pass.”

6:40pm
I get to the ticket booth and start telling the guy there my woes of being left off the backstage list. He makes a couple of calls on his walkie-talkie, to no avail. No one was answering and my name is not on his list either! Can you imagine?! He suggests that I wait until after ‘America’ finishes their set and then come back to the ticket booth just before Rick took the stage. Things would be more focussed then.

6:45pm
Wendi and I get drinks.

6:50pm
Wendi and I meet a couple of nice guys who buy us more drinks.

7:50pm
Wendi and I have missed the entire America concert drinking with these guys, and Wendi has successfully broken the heart of the single guy in this pair.

I return to the ticket booth and restate my case to the same guy again. After heaving a big sigh, he says, “You know, apparently there are a lot of people that the stage manager promised to get backstage, but he didn’t follow up with any of us. I really can’t help you out. But if you go to the lower left-hand stage area right after the concert, I’ll see if we can’t get you back there.” Good enough.

8:00pm
Wendi and I are settled into our front row seats, ready to GO. We’re feeling a little giddy and randomly let out loud, southern whoops of excitement. Oh yeah… we’re kinda’ drunk too.

8:05pm
Rick takes the stage. He looks kinda old. Wendi and I are both stunned by the amount of women our age who are suddenly rushing the front row. We elbow our way through them, not gently, and regain our positions as princesses of the lower right stage area.

8:05pm – 9:15pm
Rick fights his way through all the old favorites. Paying attention mostly to the other side of the stage from us – what’s up with that? Can’t he see our signs? What’s up with all these 30-year-olds ready to toss their panties on this guy? Yikes!

8:12pm
Rick takes his first bunch of flowers and violently strums his guitar upwards with the blooms, the result of which is a shower of rose petals that spray the stage around him. Wendi and I breathe a sigh of relief that no one will be picking rose thorns out of Rick’s unmentionables later.

8:30pm
Someone in the audience hands Rick the lyrics to a song that Rick recorded back in nineteen-seventy-something called “Motel Eyes”. We had never heard of this song, but Rick seemed pleased that someone remembered. He takes the lyrics and starts picking the song on his guitar, a little unfamiliarly. Then the same audience member hands him two basketball-size paper-mache globes, tethered with a string. Rick laughs and hangs them over the neck of his guitar. As he turns toward us we realize that they are giant eyeballs – for “Motel Eyes” – get it? Ahem.

Rick gets through the song after a couple of false starts.  At the end of the song he throws the eyeballs up in air and swings at them with his guitar. And misses. He throws them up again, swings, HITS! And the eyeballs go about 15 inches and land with a dull thud on the stage. The crowd quiets down a little. He picks them up again and makes the toss. Here’s the swing! It’s a hit! And, again… thud. The crowd is silent.

Except for a loud voice at the front right hand stage area that says, a little too loud and a little too southern, “This guy’s a fuckin’ loser.” As our quarter of the audience turns to see who has uttered this blasphemy, Wendi stands stock still and stares straight ahead as she whispers to me, “Yikes, was that my outside voice?”

I quickly glance around to the people staring at us and make eye contact with a woman right next to us. After giving me an odd look, she shrugs her shoulders and says, “Yeah, but what can you do?” Then turns her attention back to the thudding-eyeball debacle in front of her.

8:38pm
Rick takes the eyeballs and by the string and smashes them against a monitor until they finally fly apart.

8:45pm
Rick yells to the crowd, “Are you excited?!” Apparently these are the code words he utters prior to playing “I Get Excited”, a true crowd pleaser. Suddenly there is much pushing in the crowd as 4 or 5 women jump onto the low stage.  Never being one to get left behind, I grab Wendi and yell, “Come ON!”

We get up on stage with what is now about 12 other women all crowding around Rick. We position ourselves at the back of this mob where I can reach over everyone and touch Rick’s back as much as I care too. Wendi is in front of me and has buried her hand in the back of his hair. She looks at me over her shoulder and says, “Ew… this is kinda wiry and gross.” After some time of this hair-messin’, Rick says into the microphone, “Hey, babe… don’t mess with the ‘do.”  Wendi shoots me a mischievous smile and keeps on messing ‘cause Rick is trapped by all these other women and can’t really do much about any of this.

Finally, Rick gets into the song and all these women continue to bounce around him. Since I’m at the back of the pack, I get a little bored. After handing our roses to the drummer (I had seen enough roses bite the dust for one night and didn’t think Rick needed to sacrifice ours as well), I started wandering around the stage.

I realize that there is an entire 2/3 of the stage that is going unused! I jump over to one side of the stage and start shaking my butt and screaming out into the audience. Hands raised, fists pumping – it’s the Amy Show! I continue in my own little world until the song is over.

At this point I run back over to the group. The stage bouncer is trying to get us off the stage. Not politely. Wendi turns to leave quietly and I grab her by the arm. “Stay right here,” I mutter through clenched teeth. She started to protest that the bouncer/nazi was coming for us. “Don’t move,” I muttered again. Right then, Rick turned around to us and we each got our full frontal hugs from the sweaty has-been himself.

Now, back when I was 15 and Rick swung that full mullet of his from the stage and I got hit with his sweat across my cheek, I thought I was going to just die from the hormone overhaul. This time there was more sweat, less hormones, and all I wanted to do was go home and take a shower. My blouse was actually damp from his perspiration and his mullet sweat got all in my hair. Eww!

8:58pm
Rick plays Jessie’s Girl. The crowd erupts. Whereas Wendi and I thought that we had already been crushed to the fullest extent of physical laws, we were wrong. The whole place rushes the stage and, in order to save ourselves from broken bones, we jump back up onto the stage.

8:59pm
The stage nazi is screaming at us, “Get down! Get down now!!” He seems a little freaked out that the crowd has suddenly gotten so completely out of hand. I look at the teeming mass below me and look back at him. “I’ll break a leg!” I yell. “No you won’t! Get off the stage NOW!” he replied, most kindly.

At this point I start to scan the area looking for a safe way off the stage without stage diving. When I don’t immediately react to his bidding, the stage nazi begins to lightly push me on my hip towards the edge of the stage and certain doom. This is not okay.

I turn on him. “Look, I’m NOT some panty-throwing little groupie here, much to your dismay – I will get down from here when I deem that it is safe! Now back off!!”

He gave me an angry glare and did not back off, per my request. Crap. I finally gave up and sort of fell into the crowd, ankles be damned.

Wendi and I are now fully being crushed. Prior to the Jessie’s Girl extravaganza, we were being pressed between a bunch of women acting silly, just like us, and we were holding our own. At this point, however, there are a few very large men crushing to get to the stage as well.

Making eye contact and, completing the psychic connection that only 2 friends with 18 years of history can have, we started fighting our way out of the crowd.

9:07pm
We’ve made it to the bleachers and are able to breathe again. We’re looking a little worse for the wear and smelling rank – from Rick’s hugs or from the throngs of people, it’s hard to say.

“I’m okay if you want to go now,” I offer.

Wendi looks up at me a little surprised, then relieved. “Then we’re fuckin’ outta here,” she says as she bolts for the exit.

9:10pm
We’re the first ones to the bathrooms. Other women begin to file in as the concert winds down. We’re amused by everyone’s conversations and that they all seemed to be having the same reactions as us. We were comparing bitter notes with them all – “Can you believe all these women are, like, 30 years old and reacting to this guy the same way they did when they were 15!”

“Yeah,” we scoffed, “what a bunch of freaks!”

“Hey,” one replied, “weren’t you two on stage tonight?”

 “Err… no.” We got out of there as fast as we could.

9:23pm
We’re out of the parking lot before the real traffic insanity begins. Heading home, I tell Wendi that I not only got pictures of Rick, but the digital camera I had takes short film clips – I’ve got 80 seconds of his butt shaking right in front of us. “Too bad we don’t give a rat’s ass anymore,” she replied.

“Yeah… Hey, let’s listen to some music – I’ve got everyone in my CD player except Rick Springfield…”

“Excellent – crank it.”

Thus ends the tale of the concert. The upshot of it is this: I remain stunned at the number of people who still are ga-ga over this guy. While, it is hard to make this claim after the fact, I truly thought that this was all just silliness and retroactive fun – like going dancing at a seventies club or wearing blue eyeshadow. But these chicks were damn serious about their Rick love.

Did I meet Rick Springfield? No. Not how I would judge it. Wendi says a full frontal hug definitely qualifies, but I disagree.