US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-28-1983 - Day 1, Part 3: Wall of Voodoo

The third act from the first day of the 1983 US Festival was the band Wall of Voodoo.

I imagine most people who know Wall of Voodoo mainly know of them due to their one and only hit, "Mexican Radio," in 1982. It wasn't a big hit, reaching only about Number 60 in the U.S. singles charts, but it was distinctive, especially due to the unusual voice of lead singer Stan Ridgway. However, the Ridgway-led version of the band didn't last long. They put out two albums, one in 1981 and the other in 1982. But according to the Wikipedia page about the band, by the start of 1983, "Stan Ridgway claims that the situation around the band was increasingly chaotic during this era, with a great deal of drug use and out-of-control behavior on the part of the band members, as well as shady behavior by the band's management and record label."

It so happened this performance at the 1983 US Festival was Ridgway's last concert with the band. Not only did he quit shortly after this concert, but so did two other band members. The remaining two members kept going, recruited others to fill the missing spots, and released two more albums. But they didn't find much commercial success, and the band broke up for good in 1988. Stan Ridgway went on to have some success as a solo artist.

You can learn more about the band at their Wikipedia page, here:

Wall of Voodoo - Wikipedia

The album here presents the band's entire set. As far as I know, none of the performances have been officially released. I took this from a video, and converted it to mp3s. This recording is especially important because I was unable to find any other concert recordings, official or bootleg, of the band when it was led by Ridgway.

This album is 39 minutes long.

023 talk (Wall of Voodoo)
024 Ring of Fire (Wall of Voodoo)
025 Call Box [1-2-3] (Wall of Voodoo)
026 talk (Wall of Voodoo)
027 Animal Day (Wall of Voodoo)
028 Lost Weekend (Wall of Voodoo)
029 Back in Flesh (Wall of Voodoo)
030 Funzone (Wall of Voodoo)
031 Instrumental (Wall of Voodoo)
032 Mexican Radio (Wall of Voodoo)
033 talk (Wall of Voodoo)
034 Tomorrow (Wall of Voodoo)
035 talk (Wall of Voodoo)
036 Call of the West (Wall of Voodoo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17009033/VA-1983USFstvlDay0103WlloVdoo_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cgbJ59hC

The cover photo shows the band's lead singer Stan Ridgway at this exact concert.