Large fiberglass replicas of food… this is how you know that the food you see will be good but not entirely healthy. Its time to head out to the county fair, in this case its the Orange County Fair. I give you some of the sights of the fair. I would have loved to do sound, but all you have to do is think carnival music, squealing kids, loud speakers, and crackling grills with large slabs of meat.
I myself had bratwurst with sauerkraut and a beer. Then a sweet orange marmalade crepe. Then some shrimp ceviche. I didn’t have time to play the midway games, although they did seem to be giving away enormous stuffed animals. So large that people seemed compelled to abandon their kids and put the animals in the strollers.
Then came the big event… Rick Springfield in concert. I have to say for a guy pushing 60 years of age, the man can put on an energetic show. He’s had a show business career longer than I’ve been alive. He was on American Bandstand and The Sonny & Cher Show in 1972.
The concert itself was like being magically transported to the 1980s with hits like Don’t Talk to Strangers, Human Touch, and Jessie’s Girl. It reminded me of when I saw Aerosmith in 2000, they played new stuff from the 1990s and the crowd listened and cheered. But the crowded went WILD with the classics, leaving Steven Tyler to remark to the audience, “You all love the old shit.”
The concert had a smattering of fair goers but mostly the seats were filled by thousands of members of Springfield Nation, which is like Raider Nation. Only they are more female, don’t wear as much black, and are pretty well behaved when Rick wades into the audience.
What’s interesting is that Springfield in addition to music has a lot of acting credits. The intro film before the band hit the stage showed a lot of clips from both the music and acting careers. I knew about the General Hospital gig as Dr. Noah Drake. I didn’t know about the psychedelic cartoon from the early ’70s.
Before landing General Hospital he did a lot of primetime. If you had to play Six Degrees and you could only use late 1970s television, Rick Springfield is your guy with roles on the Six Million Dollar Man, The Hardy Boys, Rockford Files, Battlestar Galactica, Wonder Woman, and the Incredible Hulk.
Related posts:
