Us Festival

Information about Us Festival

The US Festivals were two early 1980s music and culture festivals sponsored by Steve Wozniak of Apple Computer, and broadcast live on cable television. The first was held Labor Day weekend in September 1982 and the second was Memorial Day weekend in May 1983. Wozniak paid for the bulldozing and construction of a new open-air field venue as well as the construction of an enormous state-of-the-art temporary stage at Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernardino, California. (This site was later to become home to Blockbuster Pavilion—now Hyundai Pavilion—the largest amphitheatre in the United States as of 2007.)

History

In the years after the confusion of the Woodstock Festival and the crowd-control debacle of the Altamont Free Concert in 1969, most festivals attempted in the United States were small-scale affairs, usually centered around a humanitarian cause, such as the 1979 Concerts for the People of Kampuchea. The 1982 US Festival was the first major festival since that time that was not a charity concert—it was intended to be celebration of evolving technologies; a marriage of music, computers, television and people. It was the first large concert to include video screens to bring the action on stage closer to the audience at the rear of the amphitheater, as well as to cable-television viewers at home.

The two festivals also included large air-conditioned tents featuring the US Festival Technology Exposition—a dazzling display of then-cutting edge computers, software, and electronic music devices. (See the Softalk article linked below for a walk back in the history of computing.)

Each of the two festivals had hundreds of thousands of people in attendance, but were resounding commercial failures. It is estimated that sponsor Wozniak lost nearly $20 million over two years.

Van Halen received an upfront sum of $1,500,000 to headline the 1983 US Festival. In contrast, The Clash refused to play unless some donations were made to charities or other such noble causes by Wozniak and some of the other major bands. After The Clash performed the DJ began speaking right away and Clash guitarist Mick Jones attacked the DJ believing he was trying to prevent an encore.

This and The Clash's ironic criticism of the festival in the press conferences and in interviews prior to the event caused an argument backstage between Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth and The Clash singer Joe Strummer. This may have also been kickstarted by a comment guitarist Eddie Van Halen made in Rolling Stone magazine one month prior regarding the punk movement ("...that's like what I played in my garage when I was a kid, man."). A clearly intoxicated Roth compounded this rivalry by insulting The Clash onstage early during Van Halen's headlining set with his comment, "I wanna take this time to say that this is real whiskey here... the only people who put iced tea in Jack Daniel's bottles is The Clash, baby!" Roth's comment, however, was one of his fairly common and often-used on-stage lines, and in this case it was directed at The Clash. This was Roth's only mention of The Clash on stage that night.

"It was the day new wave died and rock n' roll took over" - Vince Neil, in a famous quote regarding the overwhelming attendance on Sunday, "Heavy Metal Day", at the '83 US Festival. It set the single day concert attendance record for the US with an estimated 375,000 people.

Lessons learned at the US Festival contributed to the much greater success of the enormous Live Aid charity benefit shows in 1985.

Labor Day Weekend, 1982

Three days, 34 hours of music, 400,000 in attendance, 105°F (40.5°C) weather; 36 arrests, 12 drug overdoses, $12.5 million lost. (Bands are listed in the order they appeared.)

Friday, September 3

Saturday, September 4

Sunday, September 5

Memorial Day Weekend, 1983

Three days (plus a fourth Country Day a week later), 670,000 in attendance, $7-8 million lost.

Saturday, May 28(NEW WAVE DAY)

Divinyls
INXS
Wall of Voodoo - Stan Ridgway's last appearance with Wall of Voodoo
Oingo Boingo
The English Beat
Flock of Seagulls
Stray Cats
Men at Work
The Clash - Mick Jones' last appearance with The Clash.

Sunday, May 29 (Heavy Metal Day)

Quiet Riot
Mötley Crüe
Ozzy Osbourne
Judas Priest
Triumph
The Scorpions
Van Halen

Monday, May 30 (ROCK DAY)

Los Lobos (on a side stage only)
Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul
Berlin
Quarterflash
U2
Missing Persons
The Pretenders
Joe Walsh
Stevie Nicks
David Bowie

Saturday June 4th (Country Day)

Trivia

The US Festival stage has resided at the Disneyland theme park in California since 1985 and has operated under various names and functions as the Videopolis dance club, the Videopolis Theatre, and the Fantasyland Theatre.

The US Festival was mentioned in The Simpsons episode "Homerpalooza", where Homer says, "There can only be one truly great festival a lifetime and it's the US Festival!"

Tom Petty, who had a late-night set already, was an hour late for his set in 1982.

The 1982 & 1983 US FESTIVALS are on DVD go to www.rockshowvideos.com

External links

• • [ e] Notable concerts
Woodstock	Woodstock Festival (1969) • Woodstock '79 • Woodstock '89 • Woodstock '94 • Woodstock 1999
Other early festivals	Monterey Pop Festival (1967) • Atlanta International Pop Festival (1969) • Atlantic City Pop Festival (1969) • Isle of Wight Festival 1969 • Altamont Free Concert (1969) • Festival Express (1970) • Bath Festival (1970) • Atlanta International Pop Festival (1970) • Isle of Wight Festival 1970 • Wattstax (1972) • Summer Jam at Watkins Glen (1973) • California Jam (1974) • World Series of Rock (1974-1979)
Benefit concerts	The Concert for Bangladesh (1971) • Concerts for the People of Kampuchea (1979) • Live Aid (1985) • Farm Aid (1985) • Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute (1988) • The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert (1992) • The Concert for New York City/ (2001) • Tsunami Aid (2005) • Live 8 (2005) • A Concert for Hurricane Relief//From the Big Apple to the Big Easy (2005) • Concert for Diana (2007) • Live Earth (2007) • World Peace One (2007)
Benefit/political tours	No Nukes (1979) • A Conspiracy of Hope (1986) • Human Rights Now! (1988) • Vote for Change (2004)
Other festivals and tours	All Tomorrow's Parties • The Bamboozle • Big Day Out • Bonnaroo • Coachella • Download • Electric Picnic • Family Values • Glastonbury • Isle of Wight • Lilith Fair • Lollapalooza • Oxegen • Ozzfest • Pentaport Rock Festival • Projekt Revolution • Przystanek Woodstock • Radio 1's Big Weekend • Reading and Leeds Festivals • Rock am Ring • Knebworth Festival • Rock in Rio • Roskilde Festival • Sasquatch! Music Festival • Slane • US Festival • Virgin Festival • Wacken Open Air • Warped Tour • Wave-Gotik-Treffen • Witnness • WOMAD

Stephan Gary "Woz" Wozniak (born August 11 1950 in San Jose, California) is an American computer engineer and the co-founder of Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.), with Steve Jobs.
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Apple Inc.

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Labor Day is a United States federal holiday that takes place on the first Monday in September. The holiday began in 1882, originating from a desire by the Central Labor Union to create a day off for the "working man".
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San Bernardino, California

Nickname: Gate City, City on the Move, the Friendly City
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Country United States
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The Hyundai Pavilion (formerly the Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion) is a 65,000-seat amphitheater located in the hills of Glen Helen Regional Park in Devore, California, near San Bernardino. It is the largest amphitheater in North America.
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amphitheatre (alternatively amphitheater) refers to a level, open space surrounded by an oval area that gradually ascends. The area may be a man-made structure or a natural geographic formation, but it is suited for seating people on the sloping area for the viewing of
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Concerts for the People of Kampuchea was a series of concerts featuring Queen, The Clash, The Pretenders, The Who, Elvis Costello, Wings, and many more artists which took place at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, England during December 1979 to raise money for the victims of
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Van Halen is an American rock band formed in Pasadena, California in 1972. They enjoyed immediate popularity and influence from the release of their debut album, Van Halen in 1978, which lasted until the band's lineup destabilized in the late 1990s.
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The Clash were an English punk rock band, active from 1976 to 1986, and part of the original wave of UK punk rock in the late 1970s. Although a punk rock band, the band experimented with reggae, funk, New Wave, dub, and rockabilly in their music^[1]^[2].
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Mick Jones (born Michael Geoffrey Jones, 26 June 1955, Brixton, South London, England) was the lead guitarist and a vocalist of the legendary British band, The Clash, before being fired in 1983.
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David Lee Roth (sometimes referred to as "Diamond Dave") (born 10 October 1954, Bloomington, Indiana) is an American rock vocalist, songwriter, actor, author, and former radio personality, best known for his work with the band Van Halen.
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John Graham Mellor (August 21, 1952 – December 22, 2002) better known as Joe Strummer, was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead singer of the English punk rock band The Clash. He was also a member of the The Mescaleros and (temporarily) The Pogues.
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Edward Van Halen (born Edward Lodewijk van Halen on January 26, 1955^[1] in Amsterdam, Netherlands), is a guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer most famous for being the lead guitarist and a co-founder of the hard rock band, Van Halen.
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Live Aid was a multi-venue rock music concert held on July 13, 1985 . The event was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure in order to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia.
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Gang of Four is an English post-punk group from Leeds. Original personnel were singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bass guitarist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham. They were fully active from 1977 to 1984, and then re-emerged twice in the 1990s with King and Gill.
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The band was formed in the English city of Birmingham in 1978, during a period of high unemployment and social-political upheaval in the UK.
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Oingo Boingo was a critically acclaimed American New Wave rock band of the 1980s better known for their influence, soundtrack contributions, and high energy Halloween concerts than their chart successes.
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The B-52's are a New Wave rock band formed in Athens, Georgia in 1976.

The band's name comes from a particular beehive hairdo that is wrapped around, instead of teased, with an open "hole" in the top resembling the nose cone of the airplane of the same name.
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Talking Heads were an American rock band that formed in the early 1970s and was based out of New York City. The group consisted of David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison.
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Dave Edmunds (born 15 April, 1943 in Cardiff, Wales) is a singer, guitarist and record producer. Although he was primarily associated with pub rock and New Wave, and had numerous hits in the 1970s and early 1980s, he was steadfastly devoted to pre-Beatles rock and roll music.
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Eddie Money (born Edward Joseph Mahoney, March 21 1949) is an American rock musician and singer who found success in the 1970s and 1980s with a string of Top 40 hits and platinum albums.
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Carlos Augusto Alves Santana (born July 20 1947), is a Grammy Award-winning Mexican-born American Latin rock musician and guitarist.

He became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, the Santana Blues Band, going mostly under the title "Santana", which
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