Hollywood Nights will channel Bob Seger at Irwin's Lamp Theatre

Rick Murphy still remembers the date and place: Dec. 21, 1976, in the Philadelphia Spectrum.

He was all of 12 years old. With his mother’s approval, he came to see Kiss.

“She knew what this meant to me,” he recalls.

But he left the concert a lifetime fan of the opening act.

“A man came up to the microphone and asked if we were ready for some rock ‘n’ roll and we proudly screamed that we were. I could not tell you who he was at the time, but he did grab me immediately and his stance demanded that I watch his every move,” Murphy recalls.

That man had this way of holding his microphone and, with his foot up on his speaker, he seemed to almost reach right out to him and others in the audience.

“This guy was there to rock himself and I began to forget about Kiss at that moment,” Murphy says. “Blazing from one song to another with the force of a freight train, his vocals were gritty and explosive, unlike my painted heroes.”

Murphy began to look around and noticed a girl singing every word with this rocker, so he asked her, “Who is this guy?”

She screamed back with a smile, “That’s Bob Seger, man, don’t you know?”

Man on a mission

From that point on, Murphy says he made it his mission to listen for “this guy” on the radio.

Buying his album was out of the question. Money was tight and, heck, he was only in the sixth grade.

He settled for coming across a song here and there but remembered not hearing Seger very much on the radio back then, though he did not know why that was.

“He was a force to be reckoned with and his stage show was all horsepower,” Murphy says “Fast forward many years and here I am, singing this guy’s songs with a killer band in front of thousands of people and catching the eye of someone in the audience unfamiliar with his music, and knowing that I better deliver the goods to that fan as Bob did to me that night.”

Special delivery

The next delivery is scheduled for 8 p.m. Nov. 17 in Irwin’s The Lamp Theatre, where Murphy will be leading the South Jersey-based Hollywood Nights Bob Seger tribute band.

The group is in its 10th year.

“Our goal is to give them the Seger experience from the mid 70’s,” Murphy says, which is raw guitar and drums, along with piano, organ and gospel background vocals with Seger’s gritty tone on top.

The stage show is “all emotion,” he promises.

The enjoyment in performing live, Murphy says, is making a connection with the audience right out of the gate.

“And it’s feeling the energy grow to a point to where I know that we all will go home exhausted and happy and telling ourselves that’s what rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to do to you,” he explains.

Fans’ comments

He loves to hear comments like these after a show: “You guys brought me back in time,” “I never got the chance to see Seger live and now I feel I did,” “I want to buy more Seger albums because you played songs I never realized he had written” and “The whole band seemed happy performing together.”

Parents are bringing their kids to introduce them to an experience that they cherished in their youth, Murphy says.

“And they tell me at the meet-and-greets that they want to download his songs and share with their friends,” he says. “Good songs just can’t be denied.”

Humbling experience

Murphy says he and his band are truly humbled to be performing Seger’s music, knowing that fans continue to give them their blessing.

“Bob’s fans are truly dedicated to him and will never allow his music to be performed in bad taste without a fight,” Murphy says. “Being aware of that from the beginning, I believe, is what helped forge our own work ethic and commitment to getting the music right first, and then creating the show that highlighted also who we are as performers and musicians.”

Rex Rutkoski is a Tribune-Review contributing writer.