The first day of the festival was billed as "New Wave Day." The Stray Cats were a rockabilly revival band, so they seemingly would have fit better with the third day, which was simply "Rock Day." However, they often got lumped in with new wave music at the time.
The band's drummer Slim Jim Phantom later recalled, "We were very aware that we were bringing evangelical rockabilly to America, because we thought it was under appreciated here. And the US Festival was a mainstream thing. We were kind of validating the whole [rockabilly movement], and we were very proud of that."
In 1983, the Stray Cats were close to the height of their popularity. That would come later in the year with the release of the band's album "Rant n' Rave," which included the big hit "(She's) Sexy and 17." They broke up a year after that. The band's lead vocalist and guitarist Brian Seltzer later recalled, "It was silly to break up the Stray Cats at the peak of our success," but he was feeling burned out and uninspired. The band periodically reunited starting in 1986 and continuing until the present day (as I write this in 2024), but Seltzer has found more success as a solo artist.
As with many sets from the US Festival, I found this music as a video, and then converted it to mp3 files. The sound quality is worthy, though maybe a notch below some of the other sets, with a little bit of buzz, especially between songs. Also, the introduction of the band was marred by the fact that a recording of the song "The Wanderer" by Dion was playing literally until the moment the band started playing. I tried to lower that in the mix using audio editing software like UVR5, but I couldn't get rid of it entirely, due to the song's vocals overlapping with the emcee's vocals. That's what that track has "[Edit]" in its title.
Setzer later recalled, "I hit the stage and said 'Holy cow.' It was a sea of people. I looked out into the field, which was far away from the stage. And my head was on this Megatron thing. That's when it really hit me, when I saw my 40-by-40 foot head. And I just laughed. When I saw that, I thought, 'This is just gonna be a hell of a good time.'"
Note that the US Festivals were groundbreaking with their use of technology. I think they were some of the first rock concerts to have giant video screens for the crowd, which is what Setzer was referring to with "this Megatron thing." So getting to see himself on a screen like that must have been a brand new experience at the time.
This performance is unreleased. The songs are originals except for tracks 096, 098, 103, 108, and 112.
This album is an hour and four minutes long.
095 talk [Edit] (Stray Cats)
096 Your Baby Blue Eyes (Stray Cats)
097 talk (Stray Cats)
098 Double Talkin' Baby (Stray Cats)
099 Rumble in Brighton (Stray Cats)
100 talk (Stray Cats)
101 Drink That Bottle Down (Stray Cats)
102 Built for Speed (Stray Cats)
103 C'mon Everybody (Stray Cats)
104 Rev It Up and Go (Stray Cats)
105 Stray Cat Strut (Stray Cats)
106 Lonely Summer Nights (Stray Cats)
107 Fishnet Stockings (Stray Cats)
108 Jeanie Jeanie Jeanie (Stray Cats)
109 talk (Stray Cats)
110 Rock this Town (Stray Cats)
111 talk (Stray Cats)
112 Somethin' Else (Stray Cats)
113 talk (Stray Cats)
https://www.upload.ee/files/17013399/VA-1983USFstvlDay0107TStryCts_atse.zip.html
alternate link:
https://pixeldrain.com/u/rVUE1Fxm
The cover photo shows the band's lead singer Brian Setzer at this exact concert.
Thank you again for all your hard work!
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