Detroit review - Rick Springfield and Richard Marx

Fox Theater – Detroit, MI 2/16/17 
Review by Laurie Bedigian
Photos by Darla Gerken

Detroit’s Fox Theater was the place to be on Thursday, February 16^th.  The historic city landmark was host to a special acoustic concert featuring our hero, Rick Springfield, and his good friend, Richard Marx.

The evening began with the two most handsome men named Richard greeting the enthusiastic audience and then performing three duets.

Together, Rick and Richard sang (Richard’s song) “Endless Summer Nights,” (Rick’s song) “Affair
of the Heart,” and (Jackson Browne’s hit) “Somebody’s Baby.”

After some music and banter with Richard, Rick left the stage.  At that point, Richard sang several of his own hits including “Hold on to the Night,” “Now and Forever,” “Should Have Known Better,” “Right there Waiting for You,” and “Take this Heart.”

Richard was very comfortable chatting with the audience and sharing stories about his career and his musical collaborations.  As his many fans know, Richard made his name as a song writer as well as a performer.  Richard treated the crowd to a few lines of songs that he wrote for other artists like Sync (“This I Promise you”) and Keith Urban (“Long Hot Summer”).

After a brief pause, Rick took the stage and the fans went wild.  He sang a number of the usual “Stripped Down” favorites including “I Get Excited,” “Love is Alright Tonight,” “Don’t Talk to Strangers,” “Oh Well,” “If Wishes Were Fishes,” “Jesse’s Girl,” and “I’ve Done Everything for You.”  Rick took a stroll through the audience during “Human Touch.”  It seemed like Rick’s portion of the show was a bit shorter than his traditional “Stripped Down” set.  But his performance was solid and his voice was perfect. 

Rick shared stories of his childhood and his early career.  He also talked a bit about the December loss of his beloved mother.  Rick then sang the new song “Four Billion Heartbeats,” which was a tribute to his mom.  The song was followed by an emotional version of “My Father’s Chair.”
After another brief pause, both Rick and Richard took the stage to sing three more songs.  The show concluded with the Beatles hit, “All My Lovin.”

All together, we were treated to almost three hours of music.  It was a little disappointing that the show didn’t include the usual question and answer portion at the end.  But honestly, it was pretty amazing to experience Rick and Richard sing together. 

This was my third Rick solo show and my eleventh time seeing Rick in concert.  This show was definitely one of my favorites overall.  Partly because of the unique and elegant setting of the Fox Theater, but mostly because of the two beautiful and talented musicians who took my breath away.