Shock/Denial/Anger/Acceptance is the title of Rick Springfield's latest CD.

It's also a perfect description of how I'm feeling after seeing his recent concert at the nTelos Pavilion at Harbor Center in Portsmouth.

Actually I haven't even made it to the anger or acceptance phase yet.

I'm still deep in denial.

It started so innocently a couple of months ago when I found out one of my teen heartthrobs would perform at the venue on the water.

I figured it would be a great opportunity to ogle Springfield up close; it also would be a great trip down memory lane. After all, Working Class Dog was one of my first albums; "General Hospital," which starred Springfield as Dr. Noah Drake, was my favorite 1980s soap, and "What Kind Of Fool Am I" was my favorite song after a heart-wrenching break-up.

So I started soliciting other fans to go with me.

"C'mon and see one of the '80s hottest singers," I prodded in an e-mail to 15 of my closest women friends. "Watch the hunk perform 'Jessie's Girl.'"

I received one "heck, yeah, count me in" response.

And one "no way, I'm not going, and I'll tell you why" response. This came from a friend who saw Springfield in Dayton, Ohio, several years ago at a free concert. She politely described it as the worst show she'd ever seen.

This should have sent a flare into the night sky.

But my pride and curiosity - not to mention my aging hormones - got the best of me.

To prepare for the concert, I started listening to one of Springfield's CDs. I belted out "Jessie's Girl" by memory. I went to one of his many fan Web sites to see what he looks like in the 21st century.

I was not disappointed, no, no. That would come later.

First, there was the ferry ride from Norfolk to Portsmouth and a wonderful meal at the Bier Garden before the show, a few of the many reasons why Hampton Roads is an ideal place to live.

Then, there was the show.

To begin with, Springfield didn't even begin playing until nearly 10 p.m., which meant he probably wouldn't play a long set.

Almost immediately after he appeared on stage, Springfield strutted around like he was playing to a sold-out crowd. It was far from it.

He had to be endlessly touched and tended to. Roadies appeared on stage regularly to wait on the aging star.

Then came inane trips into the audience, walking on the makeshift chairs set up for the $35 ticket holders.

He strutted around in a chest-baring shirt and teased some women in the audience about touching his tush.

It was like some Las Vegas lounge act.

As co-worker and concert attendee Susan White said, "Rick's concerts seem to have evolved into some sort of shtick." He played into every '80s hair-band cliché in the book, even sporting a charcoal mane that was borderline mullet.

For goodness sake, I thought, stay on the stage and sing the songs you're popular for; we'll even indulge you with some of your newer stuff, even ones with the lyrics, "Jesus saves white trash like you." But, really, many of us didn't come to listen to you do a so-so version of Jimi Hendrix's blues classic "Red House."

"You'd think someone whose songs have lived on thanks to karaoke bars would play the crowd favorites," offered Allison Connolly, another compatriot.

But he preferred playing songs that weren't even his.

We didn't come to hear those songs or to see Springfield smash three guitars, hurling one into the rafters. I wasn't expecting a poor substitute for a 1970s concert by the Who.

And what was up with him jamming the microphone into the faces of fans in the first few rows to have them yell, "Don't talk to strangers"? Most sounded like cats stuck in car engines.

Connolly summed it up this way: "He's aged well, and that's why there were plenty of women - and their daughters - who were more than happy that he spent almost the first full hour in the crowd."

Those true fans couldn't get enough of him.

As for me, Connolly, and White, we left realizing that we'd grown up and somehow Springfield hadn't.

That acknowledgement and this column helped me get to that final phase of coping - acceptance.

Ms. Guagenti:

Thank you for your column on the recent Rick Springfield concert at the nTelos Pavilion at Harbor Center in Portsmouth. It provides further credence to my theory that artists who secured great commercial success in an earlier decade...in this case, the '80s...are unable to achieve further success because fly-by-night fans can't be bothered to listen to the artists' new material. They're far too concerned with having them retread their old hits to bother giving their latest endeavors a chance.

Rick Springfield has been put in an unfortunate position, creatively. Upon resuming his recording career after the better part of a decade with 1999's Karma, he was met with critical acclaim but commercial indifference. When touring behind the disc, he was of course aware that the majority of those buying tickets had come to hear the songs from his heyday, and he fed their desire, make no mistake. As a former idol to many women who came of age during the '80s, he knew there'd still be a crowd of slightly older but nonetheless still screaming fans, so why not play to them? But, like any musician, he wanted to spotlight the newest entry into his discography, so he performed tracks from Karma as well. It also holds true for his new album and tour, though, with Shock/Denial/Anger/Acceptance, the commercial tide has turned favorably for Springfield for the first time since 1988's Rock of Life. The first track from Shock released to radio, "Will I?," received a fair amount of airplay; the second, "Beautiful You," continues to rise on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart even as of this writing. Of course, none of the airplay comes from the Hampton Roads area, but, given the limited amount of new music being played on local stations, that's no real surprise.

Like Springfield, it appears that much of his former female fan base finds itself in an awkward place as well, particularly those with a fascination aimed more to his physical attributes than his musical abilities. They want to attend his shows so that they can listen to his music as they relive lust-laden memories of their teenage crushes, but when he plays to that desire, they cringe with embarrassment. Which is more sad: that women pay to see Rick Springfield in 2004 simply because they thought ht butt looked cute 20 years ago, or that, when he laughingly references it during his live show now, they shake their heads in dismay?

It's ironic that Ms. Connolly should have reference karaoke in one of her quotes when it seems that that's exactly what she would have Springfield do: sing the songs that everyone already knows by heart, anyway. As a music fan, I understand the thrill of attending a concert and experiencing a live performance of a favorite song, but should that occur at the expense of the artist playing the songs that he wants to sing? You make the statement that Springfield "preferred playing songs that weren't even his," but given that he performed three-quarters of his greatest-hits album as well as a handful of older album tracks, compared to two or three covers, that argument doesn't really hold up.

In closing, let me ask this: if you were a fan of a particular artist...and, mind you, I mean an actual fan, not just someone whose music you haven't bought in almost twenty years but that you remember fondly through rose-colored glasses...would you really want, as you suggest in your piece, for that artist to perform their show with less energy merely because it wasn't sold out?

If so, it may not be Rick Springfield in which you're finding fault; it might be that you don't know how to appreciate a concert to begin with.

Sincerely,

William Harris