Rick Springfield / John Waite / Wang Chung / Paul Young at Treasure Island Casino, Welch MN (2025-06-19)

RICK SPRINGFIELD TOUR DATES

The 80’s are back (again)–

With several retro package tours going on this Spring and Summer, it’s time to dig back out those acid-washed jeans, Aqua Net your big hair up, and put on that Hypercolor t-shirt again (truth to tell, going back forty+ years just makes us feel old).

It took a minute to return to modern day, but our resident Fan-in-the-Stands has emerged from his flux-capacitor powered Dolorean to give us his report on this year’s installment of the 42-date “I Want My 80’s Tour” featuring four headlining male acts of the day – Rick Springfield, John Waite, Wang Chung and Paul Young, who all made an outdoor stop at Treasure Island Casino, in Welch MN, just outside the Twin Cities.

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Singer Paul Young burst onto the scene in 1983 with his first UK number one in 1983 with “Wherever I Lay My Hat”, but actually the former singer was already in bands like The Q-Tips and Streetband, so had been working on his craft and live performance all along.

His debut album “No Parlez” topped the album charts (incl. staying at #1 in Germany for three months), eventually going quadruple Platinum, and he’s the first voice heard on Band-Aid‘s historic “Do They Know It’s Christmas” song, and also took the stage early at 1985’s Live Aid, on the UK side at Wembley Stadium.

In the States, he wasn’t ever as successful as in the UK/EU, but became still well-known enough to have several familiar songs. Young made the most of his opening seventeen minutes dressed in a Union Jack coat, ending with the Hall and Oates ballad that he made enough of its own, to make most people think it’s his original. We caught him last back in MN in 2017.

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Wang Chung is celebrating their continued touring with a new 2-disc compilation titled “Clear Light / Dark Matter: Greatest Hits & Near Misses”, released last month and the pair of Jack Hues and Nick Feldman seem to clearly still have fun playing live, long after they first formed in 1977. (Good trivia – the band’s name means “yellow bell” and is the first note in the Chinese musical scale).

The new best-of also contains rarities, remixes, outtakes, demos, and a previously unfinished track called “Separate Lives”, but their short set, of course, focused on the hits, including the soundtrack smash “To Live & Die in LA”, “Let’s Go” (not to be confused with The Cars’ song of the day) and their breakthrough single, “Dancehall Days”. The band had fun appropriating a Clash classic customized with their own lyrics, which segued into their biggest hit, “Everybody Have Fun Tonight”, which the loose crowd was clearly doing.

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Despite his decades on the road (and continued chain-smoking), there are few more distinctive voices of the era than English singer John Waite, whose Rock Hall-worthy career spans singing for The Babys and Bad English, as well as having an illustrious solo oeuvre, all highlighted in his 2022 documentary, John Waite: The Hard Way.

We’ve seen Waite semi-regularly over the years, most recently in 2022 in Leawood KS and he still brings the energy, nostalgia, and joy in performing, on a set that typically includes of a mix of solo and Babys’ numbers, as well as the hit Bad English ballad (there’s plenty of other good BE songs we’d also like to hear) and a cover or two.

Part of his continued success is keeping a solid band together- one that includes longtime drummer Alan Childs (who’s toured with Waite in the 80s and Bowie in ‘87, among others), bassist Tom Hogan, and Matchbox Twenty guitarist Kyle Cook, who had some schedule availability and also was a collaborator and producer on Waite’s 2011 album, Rough and Tumble.

The eight-song set started strong with his own, “Change” and remained upbeat with cellphone cameras going up mid-set for Waite’s biggest hit, “Missing You”, and all would end on the emphatic “Back on My Feet Again” and loud rock jam on a Led Zeppelin classic.

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For some forty-five years since he arrived from down under to grace rock stages and soap opera screens, Rick Springfield has toured like working-class dog, still excited to talk to strangers and reach his fans with that human touch. The Grammy-winning singer, actor, author, radio host has sold over 25 million albums and chart hit with seventeen top-40 singles including “Don’t Talk to Strangers,” “An Affair of the Heart,” “Love Somebody,” and “Human Touch.”

He’s been on a bit of a personal rebirth lately, re-visiting that classic “Working Classic Dog” album for a live audio/video version and released a recent compilation, “Big Hits: Rick Springfield’s Greatest Hits, Volume 2” which focuses most on the period between 1999’s “Karma” album and 2023’s “Automatic” with new single, “Lose Myself” and a re-recording of “Jessie’s Girl” on the tracklisting.

Springfield knows his crowd well and after the opening, “I’ll Make You Happy” and hits “Affair of the Heart” and “I’ve Done Everything for You” (a Sammy Hagar song, that most assume is his), he and the band launched into a medley, covering as many songs as possible to fulfill fans’ requests, and knowing the set times were truncated due to the multiple acts.

At a spry 75, he still regularly goes out into the audience, to serenade, high-five, and get as close to fans as he can, and those fans still scream, swoon, and leave flowers for him (bouquets of roses which he smashes as he plays guitar with them in-hand).

The back end of the set was all throwback hits, with Springfield staging an old vs. young singing contest with the crowd for the chorus of “Don’t Talk to Strangers”, the vintage clips on the video screens enhancing the crowd’s nostalgia, and ending of course, with 1980’s immortal “Jessie’s Girl” (a song he also hinted at during the mid-set medley, to build up excitement even more).

You Wanted the 80’s, you got it with this four-act musical buffet tour with Rick Springfield, John Waite, Wang Chung, and Paul Young, each showing there’s still more gas in the tank, to stay on the road and keep playing the hits to thrill original fans and new generations.

 >>> ALL REPORTING / PHOTOS BY JOHN “Bravestrong” RAFALSKI <<<

(A Fan-in-the-Stands report done without any formal approved Media Credentials, click on any image to enlarge and to see in full)