I've been really lucky in putting together the albums for this festival, because I was able to find a decent amount of music with worthy sound quality for all the acts on the third day. (The last day, with its country focus, was a different story, as I will explain later.) In most cases, I was able to find video of the sets and then convert them to audio. For some reason, there doesn't seem to be such a video for the English Beat set. But luckily, part of this set was officially released as part of the album "Live! At the US Festival '82 & '83." However, half of the album consisted of selected songs from the band's performance at the 1982 US Festival, and the other half was selections of what the band played at the 1983 US Festival.
By the way, the English Beat were one of only two acts to perform at both the 1982 and 1983 US Festivals. (The other was Oingo Boingo, though Stevie Nicks performed as a member of Fleetwood Mac in 1982 and as a solo artist in 1983.) This was almost the last concert before the original version of the band broke up. I could only find mention of one more, in July 1983. The original line up only did a few shows together after that, in the 1990s and 2000s.
On top of that, I was able to find one more song, "Save It for Later." This came from a radio broadcast of highlights from the festival by the Westwood One radio network, so that one is still unreleased. Other than that, I found a set list showing the missing songs:
Mirror in the Bathroom
Doors of Your Heart
Two Swords
I Confess
Too Nice to Talk To
Twist and Crawl
If anyone can find the rest of this set, let me know and I'll add it in. What is included is mostly the second half of the set, with "Jackpot" being the last song played.
By the way, here's an interesting story from Spin Magazine told by English Beat lead singer Dave Wakeling about their experience at the US Festival, relating to the fact that A Flock of Seagulls was due to perform just after them:
"Something happened during the Flock of Seagulls [preparing for their] show that some of them weren't happy with, and voices got raised. And it kind of went on and got louder in Liverpool accents – it was like listening to the Beatles fight. We were about to go on stage soon, so we already had enough butterflies coming on. The last thing we needed was the sound of the Beatles arguing on the other side of the screen. And one member of [the English Beat] – I won’t say who it was – thought it was actually a solid wall as opposed to a free-standing screen. So he kicked it and said, 'Shut up, you flock of fucking haircuts!,' thinking that he was just being insulting and that would get it off his chest. But at that point, the whole screen started falling and it hit the floor loudly. Then it was like West Side Story." (Wakeling laughed, referring to scenes in "West Side Story" where rival gangs faced each other.)
He continued, "We're all facing up on each other. Most of us were really embarrassed, and a couple from the other side who wanted to fight anyway were willing to try and make something out of it. But better senses prevailed, and we were ushered away and they were ushered to the other end, and the screen was put back up and reality was restored. We went on stage with extra verve."
This album is 33 minutes long.
059 talk (English Beat)
060 Save It for Later (English Beat)
061 talk (English Beat)
062 Jeanette (English Beat)
063 Spar wid Me (English Beat)
064 talk (English Beat)
065 Get a Job - Stand Down Margaret (English Beat)
066 talk (English Beat)
067 Tears of a Clown (English Beat)
068 talk (English Beat)
069 Ackee 1 2 3 (English Beat)
070 talk (English Beat)
071 Ranking Full Stop (English Beat)
072 talk (English Beat)
073 Jackpot (English Beat)
https://www.upload.ee/files/17012984/VA-1983USFstvlDay0105TEnglshBet_atse.zip.html
alternate link:
https://pixeldrain.com/u/ybwhnnce
The album cover shows the band's two lead singers, Ranking Roger (left) and Dave Wakeling (right) at this exact concert.
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