Staff photo / Andy Gray ... Rick Springfield headlined the I Want My ’80s Tour, which played the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre on Friday.

YOUNGSTOWN — The I Want My ’80s Tour kicked off at the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre on Friday, just a few days after the 42nd anniversary of the debut of MTV.

The timing was appropriate. Not only is the tour name cribbed from MTV’s early marketing campaign, but all four acts on the bill — Rick Springfield, The Hooters, Paul Young and Tommy Tutone — benefitted from exposure on the network.

Gather ’round the campfire kiddies and hear tales of ancient times, when there was a cable channel that played nothing but music videos instead of episodes about pregnant teens. It was sort of like YouTube, only you didn’t have any choice in what was played, so you had to sit there for hours to see your favorite band, or wait a week if your favorite band was obscure enough to only get played on “120 Minutes” or “The Headbangers Ball.”

As expected, it was an evening steeped in nostalgia. I’m not sure who made me feel older — Paul Young, who looked (and sounded) at least as old as his 67 years or the freakishly youthful and buff Rick Springfield, who turns 74 years old later this month. The crowd got to see just how buff when he closed the night singing “Jessie’s Girl” shirtless.

Springfield opened with “Affair of the Heart,” and his 65-minute set included “Love Somebody,” “I’ve Done Everything for You,” “Don’t Talk to St srangers,” “World Start Turning,” a medley of lesser hits and the title track from “Automatic,” a 20-song album released Friday.

On “Human Touch,” Springfield walked out about seven rows deep into the crowd, shaking hands as he sang. Throughout the night, fans threw bouquets of roses on stage, which he would grab and use to strum his guitar with a Pete Townshend-style windmill stroke that sent a cascade of petals floating in the air.

“Jessie’s Girl” was preceded by a video montage of some of its many uses in pop culture, from the movies “13 Going on 30,” “Boogie Nights” and “Hot Tub Time Machine” to the television series “Glee.”

Eric Bazilian of The Hooters told the crowd that Friday’s show was the first performance of the band’s first U.S. tour in 13 years.

However, the band just returned from a month-long European trek, so there were no signs of rust in the 45-minute set.

Founding members Bazilian and Rob Hyman traded off on lead vocals in a set dominated by songs from its double-Platinum-selling album “Nervous Night” (“Day By Day,” “All You Zombies,” “And We Danced”) and its follow-up, “One Way Home” (“Satellite,” “Karla with a K”).

The pair also played a couple of songs they wrote or co-wrote that were hits for others — “One of Us” recorded by Joan Osborne, and “Time After Time,” which Hyman cowrote with Cyndi Lauper.

The Hooters is an anomaly for bands of its generation. Four of the five guys who were on stage when the group played Live Aid in 1985 (Bazilian, Hyman, drummer David Uosikkinen and rhythm guitarist John Lilley) were in Youngstown on Friday.

That longevity and rapport created what was arguably the best set of the night.

Springfield’s band also provided support for Tommy Heath of Tommy Tutone and Young, who each played 20-minute sets.

Heath opened with Tommy Tutone’s first hit, the single “Angel Say No,” and got the audience members on their feet with “867-5309 / Jenny” (Today’s topic — will there ever be another hit single with a phone number because 10 digits just doesn’t have the same musical flow? Talk amongst yourselves).

Heath also did one of the more interesting songs of the night, a rocked up version of Jim Croce’s “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)” that he appropriately described as, “The Clash covering Jim Croce.”

Young’s short set included “I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down,” “Come Back and Stay” and closed with “Every Time You Go Away,” but his voice is a shell of what it was in the ’80s. His unfamiliarity with the band — he said they met for the first time that day — probably didn’t help, but it also wasn’t the main problem.