The US Festival Part I - 1982

The US Festival Part I - 1982

Although I love music and I was the right age at the time, I was unable to attend the Woodstock Music Festival in August of 1969. I really wanted to but instead I, along with a few thousand lucky others, was stuck at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi spending that weekend cloistered in a cement cinder block building riding out the brutal attack of Hurricane Camille. Camille still ranks as the 2^nd most intense hurricane to strike the continental U.S. The hurricane actually destroyed the area's wind recording instruments so the maximum sustained wind speed is unknown but from the information that they do have the top reading is estimated to be at least 150 knots (about 175 MPH). Woodstock had to go on without me.

Fast forward to 1982. A big music festival was being planned in San Bernadino California by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, The US Festival. (For those of you not familiar with this music festival the US in the name is a pronoun not the initials for our country, as in “all of us”.) To someone like me from the 60's, it seemed like it could be Woodstock reincarnate and a second chance for those of us who missed Woodstock. Pete and I bought tickets ($30 something per ticket for the 3 day event) and took Friday off from work to head down. Going with us was my girlfriend at the time, Karen, Pete's roommate Laura, and our friend Phil who was visiting with us from back East. (I don't think Steve who came out with Phil on one of his visits came with us. Steve: you can let me know if I'm wrong).

At this point I have never been to a huge music festival. I had bought tickets to Summer Jam at Watkins Glen in New York way back in '73. I was living and working in the Albany area at the time. It was just a one day festival with 3 big name bands (Allman Brothers Band, The Grateful Dead, The Band). I was not that far away and planned to leave early in the morning the day of the concert because I had to work the day before. After work I heard about the scads of people who were already jamming the roadways trying to get into the concert grounds. By the morning the traffic around Watkins Glen looked sounded like the Woodstock situation and this was only a 1 day event. I didn't want to spend the day in traffic so I skipped it. I later read about what a mess it was and how something like 600,000 people tried to attend so I was rather relieved that I didn't give it a try. That was my last attempt to attend a large music festival until the US Festival showed up.

The US Festival promised to have plenty of camping on site with access to water and food for purchase in the festival area. The 5 of us drove down and arrived before the start of the festival. We were directed to the camping area where we were lucky enough to find a camping spot near a tree. It was hot when we got there. We pitched our tents, had a quick beer, and then headed into the festival.

The festival grounds had no trees for shade but there were a couple of big tents with cooler air flowing through it that housed a technology exposition. We walked through them to cool off a number of times over the next 3 days but we never bothered to check out any of the displays. I think this was the norm. Some of the food and beverage vendors that rimmed the edge of the festival grounds had canopies that provided some shade for their patrons and we all visited them from time to time throughout the day. However, the majority of the time we were out under the sun, exposed, and it was hot hot hot, hitting 110 and it would be the same all 3 days. Karen couldn't handle the heat and she ended up missing most of the daylight performances as she spent the days in the shade by our camp area. The rest of us though stayed on the festival grounds for the whole show. One technique we used to keep cool was to wet our t-shirts. Wear one and wrap the a second one around the top of our heads. With the heat, virtually everyone carried a water bottle, and the water being sold at the festival came with a sprayer on the top. It became customary for people to spray each other as they passed by. It was sort of a courtesy action that evolved organically throughout the crowd as the festival went on.

The first music act was Gang of Four, a punk band. Pete and I had seen them play previously in San Francisco. The next act was the Ramones. The Ramones came out in full leather jackets, played a frenetic 45 minute set, rarely breaking between songs, and never removing their jackets, they must have shed 20lbs each. They hardly said a word to the crowd. I don't think they knew how to connect with such a large crowd. The Beat, (soon to be the English Beat) who we were fans of, played next. Then Oingo Boingo, The B52's, Talking Heads, and lastly the Police. I always like Oingo Boingo more than I expect to. It''s not that I don't like them, it's I just don't think of them. The B52's are always fun but both the Talking Heads and the Police were great. It was a terrific day of music as they were all bands I was currently listening to. I'd heard that they had planned on 200,000 or more attendees and there was probably less than half that number on Friday. As a result, there were plenty of facilities, like porta pottys. They had two large outdoor shower areas, with plenty of shower heads at each where you could go and run cool water all over yourself, which we all did frequently if only to keep our t-shirts wet. Vendors lined the rim of the festival grounds and there was plenty for everyone.

Before we left Sunnyvale I had warned Karen to expect to be one of the oldest people at the festival. I was basing this on my experience at recent concerts I'd been to as I was always one of the oldest in the crowd. To my surprise the crowd had a large contingent of attendees over 30, including families with kids of all ages. It appeared there were lots of people like me from the 60's looking for a second chance at Woodstock. The 2^nd day the crowd was larger but it was still not over crowded. I've seen attendance reports in the 200,000 range but it seemed less than that to me. The festival grounds were not overcrowded in the least. Acts on Saturday included Dave Edmonds, Santana, the Cars, The Kinks, Pat Benatar, and Tom Petty. It showed that Santana had experience in playing in this type of festival. The Kinks were up just before sunset. It was hot and they were intent on waiting a few minutes for the sun to go down but evidently Bill Graham insisted they go on right away. There seemed to be a little bit of controversy and of course the Kinks' Ray Davies took the opportunity to make a few less than flattering Bill Graham jokes without actually calling him out once they got on stage. I had the Cars album and had been listening to both them and the Police frequently. But I found the Cars disappointing live and the Police were among the best shows of the festival. Pat Benatar was better than I expected. I suppose I didn't expect too much but she put on a good show.

Day 3: Started with a long set by the Grateful Dead – they were a great band to start the day with and like Santana their experience with playing in front of a huge mixed crowd showed. Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffett, Jackson Browne followed with Fleetwood Mac closing the festival.  Fleetwood Mac put on a excellent show – maybe the best of the festival.

The whole festival was great. Everyone was friendly courteous and from what we saw there were no incidents. Steve eventually brought in Bill Graham to help but the festival still ended up being a big financial loss, losing an estimated 12 million.

We all drove back home to Sunnyvale the next morning. Poor Karen she couldn't take the heat. She was super glad to get back home but the rest of us had a great time at the first US Festival.