Hold Onto The Nights

On Saturday, February 8th one of my wildest dreams come true. I GOT TO FINALLY SEE RICHARD MARX LIVE IN CONCERT! It was everything I was hoping for and SO MUCH more! Hearing all those beautiful love ballads performed in an acoustic setting was even more amazing than I ever could have imagined it to be!

Melissa and I have incredible luck with running into friends of ours that we know to also be at the same concert and this experience proved to be no exception. The parents of an old friend, who’s name also happens to be Melissa, were there seeing Richard as well and as we were making our way to the restroom before the start of the show we turned the corner and BOOM! There they were! Melissa and I absolutely love them both and stood there talking for quite some time till we realized we had to hustle up as the show was about to start and we still hadn’t yet used the facilities! Nonetheless, it amazes me that in a sea of thousands, we can always run into those we know.

This was only my second time being in the Touhill Performing Arts Center on the University of Missouri, St. Louis campus and while it’s an exceptionally nice venue, it was literally hot as Hell in there that night! I of course planned on taking off my coat during the show, but I had to strip out of my cardigan too! Then on top of that I had to roll up my sleeves! I felt like I was going to stroke out from the heat! I know if I was feeling that way my wife had to be in rare form! She gets overheated at 62º! Despite the sky-rocketing temperatures, the real heat didn’t come till Richard stepped out onto that stage and rocked the house with his iconic anthems of love and with his presence the heat became an instant after thought.

He opened the show with “Endless Summer Nights,” which in retrospect, was the perfect show opener with how damn hot it was in there! As this was an acoustic setting, just Richard and his guitar or him and his piano, there wasn’t a lot of singing along – which honestly killed me. I’m used to belting out every word to every song at every concert we go to, so having to hum them quietly to myself was tough, but I made it through. In a way it was kind of a nice change of pace.

He followed that perfect temperature indicated opener with another one of my favorites, “Take This Heart.” It was an incredible jam session. He then sang a handful of past hits as well as a couple new songs from his brand new album, Limitless, that had just dropped the day before. He shared a screenshot of how his album was #2 on the iTunes pop charts and joked about Taylor Swift keeping him out of the top spot with her Lover release.

Given that I follow him on Twitter, I’m already very much aware of how witty and humorous he is, but the three I was with were unprepared for how damn funny he can be. He talked quite a bit throughout the show, which I always love when artists do, and he had the audience roaring with laughter on several occasions. After performing an absolute jam that I was sadly unfamiliar with called, “When You Loved Me” along to a video accompaniment that showed his three sons singing and performing alongside him, he dropped a bomb on us that I literally had only ever dreamt of coming true. He performed my #1 favorite *NSYNC song, “This I Promise You.”

If you’re wondering why in the Hell Richard Marx would be covering *NSYNC, then you’re clearly unaware that he wrote and produced that beautiful ballad off their No Strings Attached album. Of all the boybands from the millenium, *NSYNC was always my favorite and “This I Promise You” was always my favorite jam of theirs, so hearing Richard’s unrivaled vocals swoon over that phenomenal song was truly a dream come true. Melissa, Nancy, Erin, and I did sing along (albeit softly) with this one. I mean how could we not!?! This may very well be the closest we ever come to hearing an *NSYNC song performed live!

Richard Marx didn’t only just write and produce for *NSYNC, but many, MANY other artists have benefitted from his artistic brilliance including Luther Vandross (“Dance With My Father” for which Richard won the 2004 Grammy for Song of the Year) and one of my favorite country acts, Keith Urban.

Now let me tell you, I LOVE Keith Urban. I do not love a lot of country music – in fact I find most of it deplorable – but there are some country artists that are deniably great like Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Tim McGraw, and Keith Urban amongst a handful of others. Now Keith and Richard have collaborated on a handful of projects, but my absolute favorite Keith Urban song and one of my absolute favorite country songs in general is, “Long Hot Summer,” which as you guessed it, Richard wrote and produced. Richard performed about half this jam and it was everything I could have imagined it to be. What a surprising treat all these covers were. Given how vast his own catalogue is, I wasn’t sure if he would perform any of the songs he had his hands in, but we were fortunate to be blessed with some the best.

He then did “Hold Onto The Nights” and “Now and Forever” back to back and they were both everything you could ever want them to be. The former is one of my top three favorite songs of his and he knocked it out of the park and the latter is one of those that I sometimes forget because I’m such a Repeat Offender myself and listen to certain songs on repeat for days on end, but he made certain in that moment I would never forget what a beautiful love ballad that one is ever again.

He shared a hilarious story about going to see Tony Bennett in concert when he was twelve years old and after reluctantly succumbing to the wonder that was Tony, he sat there and marveled when Mr. Bennett sang one of his biggest songs unplugged without any mics or anything before his audience. Richard said he wanted to do that here tonight and did so with one of my top three hits of his, “Angelia.” Now being honest, we were sitting up top, so we couldn’t hear it like I would have wanted to, so while I would have preferred he performed it like he had all the others, I can’t say I was too disappointed. Here was a legend before me doing legendary things, so who was I to complain? I just made certain that once we got back in the car to head home this was the very first song we jammed to.

He then did a faux close of his set with his jam, “Should’ve Known Better” and it was every bit as rockin’ as the studio version. I loved it! This, like so many of his songs, are jams that I could never tire of hearing. He thanked the crowd and left the stage, but we all knew he’d be back, he had yet to sing one of my top ten favorite songs of ALL time.

He returned to the stage and sang another new one from his brand new album as well as his very first Billboard Hot 100 top five hit, “Don’t Mean Nothing,” before segueing into a medley of covers by artist’s like Phil Collins (“In The Air Tonight”) and Hall and Oates (“Kiss On My List”) amongst others. Then he asked the crowd if we were ready for one more and let me tell you I have never been more ready for anything else this year.

He started playing those beautiful piano keys to the song of songs, “Right Here Waiting” and for the fourth time that night tears began to well up in my eyes. I had goosebumps as he strummed those ivories and he hadn’t even started singing yet. I cannot recall a single time in my life when I haven’t loved this Billboard Hot 100 #1 (for three weeks mind you) power-ballad.

As my coworkers can attest, I reference this song at least once a day at work. Anytime one of them says they’re leaving for lunch I ALWAYS respond with, “okay, I’ll be right here waiting for you.” Let me tell you all though, once Richard started singing along to the piano it was all over for me. The tears in my eyes began to cascade down my cheeks and my mouth felt numb as I softly sang along to this absolutely perfect song. It was such a beautiful moment for me. Going into this show, I would have honestly been “Satisfied” if he only sang this one single song and walked off stage, now obviously that was never going to happen, but that’s how much I love this jam. I knew it would be the last one of the night and it was oh-so-definitely worth the wait. I was so happy when he asked the audience to sing along with him because it gave everyone else an opportunity to sing along with Richard and me. There was never any chance I was holding back on this one. There are very few songs I love more than “Right Here Waiting” in this world and being there that night and hearing Richard sing it live was an out-of-body experience that I’ll carry in my heart till the day I die.

After the show Melissa and I went downstairs to get in line to buy a SIGNED copy of his new album, but alas, they sold out before it was our turn. Thankfully though, our friends who we ran into earlier in the evening got the last copy! It made me happy that they at least got the last one. Some spunky woman in a motorized cart was thrilled she got the second to last one and I was happy to see her happiness. The whole evening was filled with such a pleasant atmosphere, how could I possibly be jealous of these people? I was thrilled for them and while I didn’t get my signed copy of his latest opus, I did get quite the consolation prize about a half hour later…

As Nancy was driving us to a McDonald’s, so we could get something to drink to quench our thirst and lower our body temperatures from the inferno that was that theater. I got an Instagram notification that Richard Marx himself added my post to his story! Let me repeat that, RICHARD MARX ADDED MY INSTAGRAM POST TO HIS INSTAGRAM STORY! I audibly gasped when the notification came up on my phone and scared everyone in the car with me, but how else does one react to a life-changing moment like that!?! I couldn’t believe it! In fact, I still cannot believe it! Not only did Richard like my post, but he took the time to share it to his official story for all his fans to see! Still feels surreal. My list of life-altering celebrity interactions just gets better and better with each passing year. Lest we forget my peak moment of such back in November 2015 when Britney Spears herself mailed me a hand-written letter!

While I felt like I was on top of the world that evening basking in all of Richard’s unrivaled artistic brilliance, I must admit some of you all shook me to my core with your blatant ignorance.

I could not believe that people I interact with on the daily were asking me who Richard Marx was! Y’all had me shook! I still can’t fathom I had to have those conversations! I mean, Richard is no Céline or Britney, but let’s be for real here, who is!?! STILL!!! He’s a living legend in his own right! After all, his record for having his first seven singles reach the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 has yet to be broken and it was set between the years of 1987 and 1990. Here we are three decades later and his record remains intact. Anyone who is sadly unfamiliar with Richard’s work would be wise to do themselves a favor and look up any single one of the songs I mentioned above. You will not regret it, this I promise you.