As Dick Clark said in the interview segment between the songs, Sparks had appeared on Bandstand as early as 1973 (on the strength of their UK success and Clark's feeling they were going to hit the US charts at any moment) and I distinctly remember seeing them perform "This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us" and my 18-year-old self saying WOW. I had already gotten into 10CC... this was long before "I'm Not In Love" and their first album included "Rubber Bullets", a saga of the riot squad breaking up Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock" party and the Charles-Atlas-magazine-ad-inspired "Sand in My Face"; but when I first saw Ron Mael's Hitler mustache and deadpan expression I knew that the CC's had been topped. Then Cheap Trick came along in '77 and The B-52s in '78 and I felt the cause of Weirdness in Rock was in good hands. (Of course, then came Weird Al...)

For a few years Sparks showed up on lots of TV shows and I used to tape them all and watch those videos over and over again. At the time they were my favorite band after the Who. I recently found a bunch of song lyrics I wrote around that time, and almost all of them are blatant attempts to write like Ron Mael, some even to the point of being obvious rip-offs (homages?) of particular Sparks songs.

In 1883 my older brother got tickets for the All Star game at Comiskey Park, but I turned my ticket down because Sparks were in town that night - opening for Rick Springfield. They were great and I don't regret missing the All Star game one bit. My friend and I left before Rick Springfield went on and ended up seeing Ron and Russel going to their bus as we were walking to our car and had a chance to meet them. They were the first celebrities I ever met and I recall being starstruck and not being able to say much other than how much I liked the show. Afterwards we suddenly remembered all of the things we said we'd ask them if we ever met them (like what the hell is "Fletcher Honorama" actually about?). Damn - I can't believe that was 27 years ago.

onefellswoop: I loved the later 10cc radio hits, but when I finally went backwards into their catalog and discovered "Rubber Bullets" it was a great day. I also tended to favor the artists that were a little weird and had a sense of humor.

Sparks were in town that night - opening for Rick Springfield

OMG. If I'd gone to that show I would have felt the earth move.

At the time Rick Springfield was just a dumb teeny bop singer to me so we left, although I did actually like a few of his hits. I just didn't want to admit I liked a few of his hits. It took me a few more years to come to terms with the fact that he had some very solid power pop songs and his earlier records are quite good. He came onto the stage about the time we were walking to our car - and the high pitched roar of the crowd was pretty loud even outside the arena in the parking lot.