Australia’s Rick Springfield, the Grammy award-winning musician, actor and New York Times best selling author is returning to rock Oz in October, with a national tour opening in Perth on 7 October.
It has been a while since Australian audiences have seen Rick Springfield in concert with his own band, although he was the headliner for the Countdown Spectacular tour of 2007 and a very privileged few witnessed him live in a wine bar in a Melbourne suburb one Sunday afternoon in July 2012 while he was on holiday visiting family.
Rick stunned Australian audience’s during The Countdown Spectacular tour when he delivered a full on rock show with hit after hit. And there is a lot of reminding to remember!
With 25 million records sold, multiple top-40 hits, including Don’t Talk to Strangers, An Affair of the Heart, I’ve Done Everything for You, Love Somebody and Speak To The Sky, as well as a 1981 Grammy® for Best Male Rock Vocal for his No. 1 hit single “Jessie’s Girl,” He also introduced and had his own hit with the Mondo Rock classic ‘State Of The Heart’ in America.
Rick Springfield’s shows are legendary for their rock, high energy, full band sets and classic song lists. According to many, Springfield live is more aligned to Springsteen because of his rock’n’roll style performances. He even once recorded the song Bruce in recognition of this.
Touring Australia with his band has been something Rick has been eager to do for a long time “ I am and will always be an Aussie. My best memories of my early career are all centred around Australia. It will forever be my home. I cant believe I have never done a full tour in Oz as a solo performer. I am a F***ing Aussie boy.”
Rick Springfield started his celebrated career in Australia in the 60’s as one of the original members of Mike Brady’s MPD Ltd. In 1969 he joined the band Zoot, with Beeb Birtles (pre-Little River Band), Rick Brewer (pre-The Ferrets) and Darryl Cotton (who would go on to have his own solo career and become a children’s TV host). Zoot was where Rick developed his rock and roll grounding, co-writing two of their singles ‘Hey Pinky’ and ‘Freak’. The band is best remembered for their top 10 chart with a hard rock cover version of the Beatles ‘Eleanor Rigby’. Rick reformed the band in November 2011 with Darryl’s passing the following year more shows were not possible.
Following the breakup of Zoot in 1970, Rick was Russell Morris’ bass player for a few months before he released his debut single ‘Speak To The Sky’ which made the top 10 in Australia and the US Top 20. In 1972 he released his first solo album, Beginnings before he relocated to the US later the same year. 40 years later, he is a special guest on Russell’s new album ‘Van Dieman’s Land’.
Once in the US, Springfield continued to record and perform live before beginning a new career as a TV actor appearing in ‘The Rockford Files’ and ‘Wonder Woman’, before landing the lead, as Dr. Noah Drake, in ‘General Hospital’ a role that won him a legion of fans.
Rick’s star was well and truly on the rise when he released his album, ‘Working Class Dog’, which became a smash hit in 1980 and spawned the number one hit ‘Jessie’s Girl’. In the following years he continued to record and perform live along with appearances in films and TV shows and on Broadway in the musical ‘Smokey Joe’s Cafe’. His role as Dr Noah in General Hospital was reprised following a 23-year absence. He was recently the centrepiece of the plot of David Duchovny’s Californication third season playing a very lovable but degenerate character named …Rick Springfield. Rick has also appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0, and Drop Dead Diva.
Jessie’s Girl is featured in Laryngitis, the eighteenth episode of Season one of Glee and was also performed at the 2011 Glee Live! Concert and Glee: The 3D Concert Movie.
In 2010, Rick released his autobiography, Late, Late at Night. It entered The New York Times best-seller list at No. 13 and hit the Los Angeles Times and Publishers Weeklylists as well. Rolling Stone named it one of the top-25 rock autobiographies of all time.
In 2012 Springfield’s documentary An Affair of the Heart, which captured the close ties between Springfield and his fans, debuted at numerous film festivals and won special jury awards at the Nashville, Florida, Boston, and Daytona Film Festivals.
In 2013 Springfield teamed up with Dave Grohl on Grohl’s multi-faceted passion project, Sound City, which encompassed a documentary (Sound City), an album (Sound City: Real to Reel), and the Sound City Players tour, a string of critically acclaimed shows with fellow documentary subjects including Stevie Nicks, Trent Reznor, John Fogerty, and Sir Paul McCartney among others. Each artist’s set was backed by Grohl’s hand-picked all-star band. Springfield and Grohl co-wrote The Man That Never Was, which has been widely recognized by critics as one of the best songs on the Sound City album.
In 2014 Rick Springfield’s first novel, Magnificent Vibration will be released and in addition he will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He will hit the road withPat Benatar & Neil Giraldo for a multi-city tour of the States – and of course we will see him for his October tour of Australia. With all this and more, Springfield shows no signs of slowing down.
AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES
Tickets on sale May 6
Perth – Tue 7 Oct – Crown Theatre – Ticketek 132 849
Brisbane – Thu 9 Oct – Eatons Hill Hotel – Oz Tix 1300?762 545
Tweed Heads – Fri 10 Oct – Twin Towns Services – Inhouse 1800?014 014
Sydney – Sat 11 Oct – Revesby Workers – Whitlam Theatre – Inhouse 02?9772 2100
Canberra – Mon 13 Oct – Royal Theatre – Ticketek 132 849
Sydney – Tue 14 Oct – Enmore Theatre – Ticketek 132 849
Hobart – Thu 16 Oct – Wrest Point entertainment Centre – TixTas 1300 795 257
Melbourne – Fri 17 Oct – Palais Theatre – Ticketmaster 136 100
Adelaide – Sat 18 Oct – Thebarton Theatre – Venue Tix 08?8225 8888
