A Special Documentary About the US Festival Is Coming
Monday, May 28, 2012 at 12:02AM Happy Memorial Day, Americans!
Way back when, I wrote a little blog about wishing I had a time machine to go back to the 1979 US Festival. Well, there's no time machine... but a new documentary about the US Festival is coming soon! Here's some info:
ICON Television Music, the UNUSON (Unite Us In Song) Corporation and Plum Moving Media are proud to announce the definitive 1982 'US' Festival documentary titled US Festival 1982: The 'US' Generation. Regarded as the Woodstock of the 80s, the 'US' Festival captured the mindset of a culture on the cusp of a technology transformation. The documentary reveals the bands, fans and organizers who brought Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's rock festival to life. Headliners at the '82 Festival included Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Fleetwood Mac and The Police among others.
Here's a clip:
Reader Comments (6)
Not '82 but '83...
One is titled "US Festival '83, Heavy Metal Day", highlighting performances of the bands featured on a day that was completely set aside for Metal acts. Each band is shown performing around 3 songs or so, though their sets were much longer.
The bands are an impressive line-up... Motley Crüe, Quiet Riot, Judas Priest, Scorpions and Triumph (the latter really comes off like an unintentional Spinal Tap when compared to the rest of the aforementioned acts).
The other I snagged features Crue's entire performance plus some other rare early Crue footage.
Both can be had for around 10 or 12 bucks each but realize we ain't talkin' HD here, though it's all pro shot and is still fairly sharp.
It was choking hot, there' was a constant haze of dirt in the air, which made it hard to breathe, (& got the event a nickname, "The Dust Festival"), and bathrooms were woefully inadequate.
The positives?
Quiet Riot were great, even with Carlos Cavazo's tuning problems,
Motley Crue were pretty good, in spite of being all gakked up, (and it was weird seeing them in sunlight)
Ozzy was kind of lackluster,but adequate, even with a bass player switch the night before. (Don Costa out - Bob Daisley in... again.)
Triumph ? BORING! Time to go find a bathroom!
Judas Priest were OK, but having seen the Screaming For Vengeance tour twice already, were nothing new.
Scorpions - supporting "Blackout" were the standout stars of the day.
Van Halen - All f*cked up, sloppy... were an embarrassment as the headliner.
And I remember it took almost a month of hacking to get the dust out of our lungs.
Crue / Ozzy / Priest / Triumph / Scorps / VH -> performances + post set interview from each act.
Kicks ass
Wow, Ace! Amazing you were there! Your descriptions shed a whole new light on the performances. I will watch it yet again (I've watched it 8 times already but skipped VH and Ozzy after the first viewing, which explains why I didn't recall them on it), laffing even harder, now having your perspective on it.
Again, this DVD doesn't contain each band's entire sets but having the other DVD with the entire Crüe set does lead me to believe the whole sets exist somewhere.
Too bad I was such an idiot back then and didn't realize I should go out here. I was probably lazin' by the pool in Maryland completely unaware of the Metal Mayhem about to ensue!
p.s. Hey, Ace, I must say, tho, I found Priest to be in fine form. Even tho you may have just seen 'em for those who missed 'em during that period, they are amazing here, especially Halford, who's choreography and stagecraft is quite killarious!