Springfield show helter-skelter affair

Friday night's concert with 1980s heartthrob Rick Springfield might just have been one of the strangest nights at the South Shore Music Circus in some time.

What the near sellout crowd, mostly 40-something women, witnessed during the evening was a water-gun duel on stage, the star singing and playing the guitar while navigating the crowd by walking along the arms of the chairs, and more.

Three women from the audience danced on stage a routine they seemed to have been practicing since they were 13. Springfield accepted flowers from the fans, then used them windmill-style on his guitar, so petals exploded into the crowd.

Some of the wacky theatrics could have been attributed to the fact that Springfield and his band hadn't slept in 30 hours and were a tad giddy.

Even aside from that , the show was pretty ragged.

Things started off ominously, with Springfield saying they were going to do an acoustic show - at least according to Springfield - because while they were sound-checking with the electric band, the town complained about the noise and told them to perform "unplugged".

But that threat lasted about the first four or five songs, which featured the Beatles' "Nowhere Man" and a ripping "I've Done Everything For You"

During the sing-along 'It's Always Something", women held up signs proclaiming " Happy Birthday" wishes to Springfield, who turned 51 the day before the show.

The show, which was taped for a VH1 special, was a hit or miss affair from then on, with selections ( now in electric form) featuring Them's "Gloria", the Troggs' "Wild Thing" and an adequate rendition of "Tear it All Down", with Springfield reading the lyrics from a piece of cardboard held up by a fan on stage.

“Alison" was accompanied by at least one low-flying brassiere, and "Don't Talk To Strangers" put the audience at a fever pitch, as security guards fought the good fight with ineffective results.

Scorching renditions of " I Get Excited", "Human Touch", and "Jessie's Girl" ( by now Springfield and band were intent on cracking a few windows along Sohier Road), brought the mayhem to a close.