warrin with an i

The US Festival Part II - 1983 M y brother Pete and I attended the first US Festival on Labor Day Weekend in 1982. The festival was put on by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and he lost a bundle on it. Of course he still had plenty of money and now experienced, he decided to do it again and planned a second US Festival for the Memorial Day Weekend in 1983 just a little less than nine months after the initial US Festival. This time he enlisted a promoter (Barry Fey) right from the start with the intention of not duplicating the loss he suffered in '82. O f course there was a new lineup of acts with just 3 acts held over from the previous festival, The English Beat, Oingo Boingo and Stevie Nicks, this time solo but had previously performed as part of Fleetwood Mac the first time around. Tickets were sold for both the full event as well as for a single day right from the get-go. As I recall the first one only sold full festival tickets until just before the festival date. In ...

The US Festival Part I - 1982 A lthough 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. F ast 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 n...