The fifth act presented here from Day Three of the 1982 US Festival is a set by Fleetwood Mac. They were the closing act for the festival.
Not long before this festival, in July 1982, Fleetwood Mac released their studio album "Mirage." It was a big hit, going double platinum in the U.S. Festival funder Steve Wozniak must have really wanted them for his festival, because he paid them $500,000, the most of any act at the festival. That seems like a fairly trivial amount in the 2020s, but it seemed an outrageous amount for a single concert performance back then.
Unfortunately, as with most of the recordings for this festival, all I could find was an audience boot for this set. I tried hard to improve it with the UVR5 and MVSEP editing programs. Hopefully, someday the full festival recordings will be made public. Apparently, there is one record company with the rights, and they're releasing individual albums. They put out the English Beat album from the festivals, for instance. But they seem to be moving at a snail's pace.
The Rolling Stone Magazine article I found about this festival had a little bit to say about this set:
While [prior act Jackson] Browne was onstage, the members of Fleetwood Mac arrived backstage. They had played the previous day in Orlando, Florida, and didn't make it to San Bernardino until after three A.M. Sunday. But, as Christine McVie said, "We're getting such a lot of money for this that we couldn't pass it up. And it's a good opportunity to do something big on the West Coast."
A short while later, when Mick Fleetwood pounded out the beat that begins "Second Hand News," there was a typical Graham touch. All weekend long, volunteers had been inflating helium balloons, and at that moment, they were released from the scaffolding at the sides of the stage. The balloons drifted out over the dust and the lakes and the parking lots and the campgrounds, sailing away in two thick clumps. The crowd called on its final reserves of energy and whooped it up. It was just what Tom Petty had described: a party.
By the way, I've posted an album of a concert from this band's 1982 tour. In terms of sound quality, that's a better listen, no doubt. But you may still want to listen to this to get the full US Festival experience.
This album is an hour and 47 minutes long.
081 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
082 Second Hand News (Fleetwood Mac)
083 The Chain (Fleetwood Mac)
084 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
085 Don't Stop (Fleetwood Mac)
086 Dreams (Fleetwood Mac)
087 Oh Well, Part 1 (Fleetwood Mac)
088 Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac)
089 Brown Eyes (Fleetwood Mac)
090 Eyes of the World (Fleetwood Mac)
091 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
092 Gypsy (Fleetwood Mac)
093 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
094 Love in Store (Fleetwood Mac)
095 Not That Funny (Fleetwood Mac)
096 Never Going Back Again (Fleetwood Mac)
097 Landslide (Fleetwood Mac)
098 Tusk (Fleetwood Mac)
099 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
100 Sara (Fleetwood Mac)
101 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
102 Hold Me (Fleetwood Mac)
103 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
104 You Make Loving Fun (Fleetwood Mac)
105 I'm So Afraid (Fleetwood Mac)
106 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
107 Songbird (Fleetwood Mac)
108 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
https://www.imagenetz.de/dX33a
alternate:
https://pixeldrain.com/u/ooijnwtg
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/v1gDFNzxh8BigmS/file
The cover photo is from this exact concert. Like many of the photos from this festival, I used the Krea AI program to add some detail.
Thank you so much for bringing back the original US Festival!
ReplyDeleteThanks for finishing up the 82 US Festival. Quite a feat! Kinda sad Woz didn't keep this going for a few more years.... think of all the great music that came out from '84, '85 and '86. Of course, one can't blame him for not continuing after losing nearly 25 million in early 80s money which was obviously was quite a bit o' cash back then (hell, it's quite a bit of money now!). Again, thanks for putting the albums for '82 and '83 US Festivals together. It'll give me some good stuff to listen to for sure!
ReplyDeleteI think the US Festivals were all about his free time, not the money. He was injured and in recovery, so he had time to work on the festivals. After the second one, he was fully healed and busy working on other things. I don't think he worried much about the money. He said something at the time about how he could have afforded 40 more US Festivals no problem. (It's nice to be filthy rich!)
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