Saturday, August 24, 2024

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-28-1983 - Day 1, Part 6: A Flock of Seagulls

The sixth album from the first day of the 1983 US Festival is a set by the band A Flock of Seagulls.

The first day of the US Festival was called "New Wave Day" by the organizers, and this band certainly fits. In the Wikipedia entry for the band, there's a quote calling them the "poster band of new wave music," especially for their outlandish haircuts. The band is still in existence as I write this in 2024, but they peaked in the early 1980s, with all four of their hit songs happening between 1982 and 1984. They're best known for their hits "I Ran (So Far Away)" and "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)," both of which hit Number Three in the singles charts in the U.S.

Here's the link their Wikipedia page if you want to know more:

A Flock of Seagulls - Wikipedia

As with much of the music from this festival, I found a video of their complete set and converted it to mp3 files. So this is the complete set. To be honest, this set is a bit longer than what I would want from this band, but I'm posting everything from this festival I can find with worthy sound quality. I believe the entire set is unreleased.

By the way, I found a Spin Magazine article in which Mike Score, the band's lead vocalist, shared some recollections about the festival. On the first day, it was known about 160,000 people paid to attend, though with some additional people sneaking in, the crowd was probably 200,000. Score was amazed at how large the crowd was. "I walked on stage, looked over at [bassist] Frank [Maudsley] and [guitarist] Paul [Reynolds] and remember suddenly going, 'Wow, they look about an inch tall.' Normally you see them, they're like two feet tall. They looked like little tiny fingers in the distance."

Score also had fond memories of hanging around backstage after their set, especially because Eddie Van Halen of Van Halen, due to perform a day later, stayed backstage for most of the day. "I felt really lucky – I got to actually meet Eddie Van Halen. I just met him for ten minutes, but that was it. And then my manager was like, 'Come on, we gotta get back to the hotel. We got to get packed, we got to get ready for our flight, you know?' And I was kind of like, 'Hang on, hang on. I’m talking to Eddie Van Halen.' Our manager said, 'I don't care if you're talking to the Queen. Come on. We’ve got stuff to do.' But it was great. I mean, what a memory."

Slim Jim Phantom, drummer for the Stray Cats, had a similar memory: "I remember spending a beautiful day with Edward Van Halen. He came a day early to watch all the bands and enjoy the whole experience. I thought that was cool, rather than arriving five minutes before [Van Halen] played. Everyone was drinking beer and smoking Marlboros."

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

074 talk (A Flock of Seagulls)
075 Space Age Love Song (A Flock of Seagulls)
076 talk (A Flock of Seagulls)
077 D.N.A. [Instrumental] (A Flock of Seagulls)
078 talk (A Flock of Seagulls)
079 Electrics (A Flock of Seagulls)
080 Messages (A Flock of Seagulls)
081 The Traveller (A Flock of Seagulls)
082 Telecommunication (A Flock of Seagulls)
083 talk (A Flock of Seagulls)
084 Nightmares (A Flock of Seagulls)
085 talk (A Flock of Seagulls)
086 The Fall (A Flock of Seagulls)
087 Transfer Affection (A Flock of Seagulls)
088 Over the Border (A Flock of Seagulls)
089 talk (A Flock of Seagulls)
090 What Am I Supposed to Do (A Flock of Seagulls)
091 Man Made (A Flock of Seagulls)
092 You Can Run (A Flock of Seagulls)
093 Wishing [If I Had a Photograph of You] (A Flock of Seagulls)
094 I Ran [So Far Away] (A Flock of Seagulls)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17012980/VA-1983USFstvlDay0106AFlckofSeglls_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2FN48tbd

The cover photo shows members of this band from this exact concert.

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