Submitted photo Youngstown’s The Vindys – featuring, from left, Rick Deak, Jackie Popovec and John Anthony – will tour this summer as the opening act for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo.

What could be better than a vacation in Rome? Getting a call while in Italy that Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo want your band to open for them on their summer tour.

That’s what happened earlier this month to Jackie Popovec, lead singer of Youngstown’s The Vindys.

The tour was announced Tuesday, and The Vindys are scheduled to play 16 dates on the tour, and Popovec said some additional shows haven’t been announced yet.

“We’re so excited,” she said Tuesday

Everything came together quickly. The first call from Benatar’s management was a week and a half ago while in Rome. When the details were finalized on Monday, the band learned the tour announcement would come the following day.

It won’t be the group’s first time playing with the husband-and-wife duo. The Vindys opened for them at MGM Northfield Park as well as a show outside of Detroit last year. And the band has played many shows outside of the region, including a week-long run of shows on the West Coast. But this will be its first full-scale tour with an itinerary that includes concerts from Washington state to New York City.

“We get to play the Beacon Theater in New York, the Paramount Theater in Denver,” Popovec said. “We get to play Las Vegas at the Palms Resort Casino. We’re going to be in front of an amazing fan base that is loyal to Pat, and I imagine we’re going to pick up so many new fans. We had to make it work.”

While local audiences are used to seeing The Vindys with a horn section, the band will be touring as a six-piece unit – Popovec, lead vocals and guitar; John Anthony, guitar; Rick Deak, guitar; Nathan Anthony, keyboards; Brendan Burke, bass; and Owen Davis, drums. However, Popovec said they hope to include the horns for some of the dates closer to home, such as MGM Northfield Park on July 10 and Hershey, Pa., on July 18.

This isn’t the way the band members expected to spend their summer

“We had every plan to stay in the studio this summer,” Popovec said. “July and August, which are our busiest months, I left them completely wide open, which is the craziest thing. When Pat Benatar calls you, you don’t say no.”

Benatar had 15 top 40 hits between 1979 and 1988, including “Love Is a Battlefield,” “We Belong,” “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” and “Heartbreaker.” Giraldo, a Cleveland native, was Benatar’s lead guitar player as well as the producer on some of her albums and co-writer of many of her songs. They were inducted into the Rock Hall in 2022.

Popovec credited the shows The Vindys had done in the past with Michael Stanley & the Resonators and Donnie Iris & the Cruisers with putting the band on Live Nation’s radar and leading to the first show with Benatar and Giraldo at MGM Northfield Park’s Center Stage.

“Opening for them turned into some great friendships and relationships,” she said. “Our name has been known in the industry around here, and I think that’s how this all started.”

Before that tour starts July 6 in Atlantic City, N.J., The Vindys will play with the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra at Powers Auditorium on April 26, but the musicians also are preparing for an extended stint away from home.

“Just last week, we bought a van. We bought a trailer. We put the hitch on the back yesterday, and now we’re ready to go.”