US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-30-1983 - Day 3, Part 2: Quarterflash

The second act on Day Three (Rock Day) of the 1983 US Festival was the band Quarterflash.

The main forces in Quarterflash were Rindy Ross, the band's lead singer and saxophone player, and her husband Marv Ross, who played guitar and wrote most of the songs. They were formed in 1980 and found success right away. Their first single, "Harden My Heart," reached Number Three on the U.S. singles chart in 1981. Their follow-up single, "Find Another Fool," also made the Top Twenty, and their debut album "Quarterflash" sold over a million copies. Their follow up album, "Take Another Picture," was released in March 1983, two months before this festival. That contained another Top Twenty single, "Take Another Picture."

So far, so good. But unfortunately, their subsequent albums and singles failed to make their mark on the charts. The band finally folded in 2020.

Here's their Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

Quarterflash - Wikipedia 

Unfortunately, this is another case where the set was almost certainly longer. I was only able to find four songs because they were included as part of the Westwood One radio network's broadcast of selections from the festival. If anyone has any music I'm missing, please let me know. 

This album is 20 minutes long.

005 talk (Quarterflash)
006 Find Another Fool (Quarterflash)
007 talk (Quarterflash)
008 Take Me to Heart (Quarterflash)
009 Harden My Heart (Quarterflash)
010 Take Another Picture (Quarterflash)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3LqKvyaA

The cover art of the band's lead singers Rindy Ross is from this exact concert.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-30-1983 - Day 3, Part 1: Little Steven (Steven Van Zandt)

The first act of Day Three (Rock Day) of the 1983 US Festival was Little Steven, a.k.a., Steven Van Zandt. Technically, the act's name was "Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul," but I'm using the shorter name here.

Before I talk about the artist, I want to mention the theme of Day Three, which the promoters billed as "Rock Day." In my opinion, that name was a bit off, because Day One was "New Wave Day," and this day contained some new wave acts, like Berlin and Missing Persons. Most of the acts from the day were played on new wave radio stations at the time, like U2, the Pretenders, and David Bowie. Only a couple, like Joe Walsh, were clearly "rock" acts. So this almost could have been "New Wave Day, Part 2."

Anyway, Little Steven is best known today for being a member of Bruce Springsteen's back-up band, the E-Street Band. He first joined Southside Johnny and the Ashbury Dukes, and wrote most of their songs in the 1970s. But in 1975 he also joined Springsteen's E-Street Band, and slowly phased out his involvement with the Ashbury Dukes. In 1982, he released his first solo album, "Men without Women." At the time of this festival, he was mainly promoting that album. All three songs here are from it. But he also still was a member of the E-Street Band.

In 1984, he put out a second solo album and quit the E-Street Band to focus fully on his solo career. But that career petered out by the start of the 1990s, when he was unable to get a new record contract. He rejoined the E-Street Band when it reformed in 1995, and he's been a member of it ever since.

Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

Steven Van Zandt - Wikipedia

Unfortunately, I only have three songs from this set. I'm sure there was more, since it seems all the sets in the festival were at least half an hour long, but I couldn't find a complete set list. The reason I have these songs is because they were included as part of a Westwood One radio network special that played some selected songs from the festival.

This album is 14 minutes long.

001 Lying in a Bed of Fire (Little Steven)
002 talk (Little Steven)
003 Under the Gun (Little Steven)
004 Angel Eyes (Little Steven)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/8oJpddpP

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

UPDATE: On October 6, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program because the original was very grainy.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-29-1983 - Day 2, Part 7: Van Halen

The seventh and last act to perform on Day Two (Heavy Metal Day) of the 1983 US Festival is Van Halen.

Van Halen is a very well known band, so I don't feel the need to explain much here. Note this festival took place near the end of the band's era in which David Lee Roth was the lead singer. In 1984, one year later, they would release the "Jump" album which would be a massive success, but Roth would leave after the world tour that followed. At the time, the band was still promoting their 1982 album "Diver Down."

If you want to know more about the band, here's their Wikipedia entry:

Van Halen - Wikipedia

There's much to say about the band's performance. For starters, there was a big controversy about how much they got paid to perform. Multimillionaire Steve Wozniak was bankrolling the entire two US Festivals, and for the 1983 one, he got most of the acts he wanted, even if he had to pay through the nose. As one of the headline acts, Van Halen was paid the most money, a million dollars. That was an astronomical amount for a single concert back in 1983. (It would be about three million dollars adjusted for inflation in 2024, but also, concert ticket prices have gone up way faster than inflation since then.) 

However, after Van Halen signed the contract to perform at the festival, David Bowie agreed to perform as the headliner for a million and a half dollars. It turned out Van Halen's contract included a clause that if anyone else at the festival was paid more, they would have to be paid that much too. So their million dollar fee was also boosted to a million and a half.

These developments pissed off the Clash. They were the headline act for Day One of the festival, while Van Halen was the Day Two headliner and David Bowie was the Day Three headliner. Yet the Clash were only being paid $500,000, and they didn't have any clause to boost that when the others were paid more. As a result, in the weeks leading up to the festival, Joe Strummer, lead singer of the Clash, complained a lot in the press, and especially criticized Van Halen. David Lee Roth, Van Halen's outspoken lead singer, then complained back. 

For instance, in an interview given to MTV earlier in the day, Roth said, "The Clash are having a lot of troubles, man. They're trying to save the nation, they're trying to implement cultural exchange – and change – they're trying to make some, you know, advisements on terminology of what we're going to live. And they have a new drummer. So they have their hands full out there. [Laughs.] What can I say? By the way, the Clash did save the world – about a half hour late last night, ladies and gentlemen. [Laughs.]"

Then, during the actual performance, he threw in another insult in his banter between songs, holding up a bottle and saying, "I wanna take this time to say this is real whiskey here. The only people who put ice tea in Jack Daniels bottles is the Clash, baby!"

If Roth's comments to MTV sound a bit incoherent ("advisements on terminology?"), that's because he was quite drunk when he said them. Apparently, he was rip roaring drunk (and high as well) for the entire day as the band waited to go on stage late that night. But he was hardly the only one getting wasted backstage that day.

Bassist Michael Anthony later recalled, "We had a big backstage setup and we had a lot of guests. That was one big party. Motley Crue back then was just coming up. And Tommy Lee came up to me with a bottle of Jack Daniels in the middle of the afternoon: 'Come on, dude! Fuckin A!' [Laughs.]. I'm like, 'Brother, I'll drink with you. But let's wait until tonight [to really go hard].'"

Anthony further explained, "We were pretty nervous. Roth was probably a little more nervous than everyone else. I don't like to talk smack about anybody, but he was doing interviews all day long, just kind of hyping the whole thing. And Dave was drinking Jack [Daniels] and whatever. He was pretty well plowed. You get caught up in the whole frickin' festival and the whole thing. And the next thing you know, it's kind of like, 'Oh my God, we gotta go on in an hour!'"

Band manager Noel Monk later said, "David liked to drink a little before going out onstage, but very rarely had he imbibed so heavily that it affected his performance. There were a few times overseas when David had gotten drunk before media appearances, but in the States he had always been smart enough to keep things under control. So imagine my surprise when I returned to the trailer a couple hours later and found David drunk and krelled out of his mind. ["Krell" was the band's nickname for cocaine.] I mean, I was mortified; he could barely stand up."

After the Scorpions finished their set, Van Halen wasn't ready to go on, due to Roth being too wasted. Luckily, the band had made a video to get the crowd hyped up. It supposedly showed wild partying going on backstage, including scantily clad or half-naked women, butlers in tuxedos, and midgets and farm animals wandering around (just to add to the chaotic atmosphere). In fact, it was filmed a week before to fake what the backstage party would be like, but the actual backstage party was just like that, only wilder.

However, the video wasn't that long, and mostly the audience just had to wait. Two hours passed before Roth was deemed capable of going on stage. But even then, he was still very drunk. (Curiously, the Clash also started about two hours late the night before, as I explained in the album write-up for their performance.)

Some people complained that Roth gave a poor performance. For instance, Ozzy Osbourne, who had performed earlier in the day, commented, "Honestly, I don't know why Van Halen even bothered getting up there, they were so fucking drunk." And even Monk, the band's manager, later said, "David put on the worst performance I had ever seen from him." However, the rest of the band played well, and the audience responded positively overall.

Bassist Anthony also has a different opinion, saying of the performance, "We were tight behind him. And when I watch the tape back, we were firing on all cylinders. All four of us, whether Roth was drunk or not. The energy was there. The show is there."

I listened to this a couple of times, and in my opinion I think the band sounded fine. It's not even obvious that Roth was drunk, except for the fact that he went off on some long rants between songs a couple of times. I'd be curious if people think this was a bad show by them or not.

This is sourced from a soundboard worthy bootleg. The entire show is officially unreleased.

This album is an hour and 59 minutes long.

001 Romeo Delight (Van Halen)
002 Unchained (Van Halen)
003 Drum Solo [Instrumental] (Van Halen)
004 The Full Bug (Van Halen)
005 Runnin' with the Devil (Van Halen)
006 talk (Van Halen)
007 Jamie's Cryin' (Van Halen)
008 So This Is Love (Van Halen)
009 Little Guitars (Van Halen)
010 Bass Solo [Instrumental] (Van Halen)
011 Dancing in the Street (Van Halen)
012 Somebody Get Me a Doctor - I'm So Glad (Van Halen)
013 Dance the Night Away (Van Halen)
014 God Bless the Child [Edit] (Van Halen)
015 Cathedral [Instrumental] (Van Halen)
016 Secrets (Van Halen)
017 Everybody Wants Some (Van Halen)
018 talk (Van Halen)
019 Ice Cream Man (Van Halen)
020 Intruder [Instrumental] (Van Halen)
021 Oh, Pretty Woman (Van Halen)
022 Guitar Solo [Instrumental] (Van Halen)
023 Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love (Van Halen)
024 Bottoms Up (Van Halen)
025 You Really Got Me - Happy Trails (Van Halen)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uj3WuRTR

The cover photo of Eddie Van Halen (with guitar) and David Lee Roth is from this exact concert.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-29-1983 - Day 2, Part 6: The Scorpions

The sixth act on Day Two (Heavy Metal Day) of the 1983 US Festival is the German band the Scorpions.

Before I say more about the band, I want to discuss the sound quality here, because out of all the acts in the festival, I had the most difficulty with this one. There were some acts where I couldn't find any much from them at all, mostly from Day Four of the festival, which was Country Day. I'll discuss that day later. Of the acts on the other three days, I found at least something, all with worthy sound quality. The one exception of Los Lobos, who were the opening act of Day Three. But apparently they didn't play on the main stage but some smaller side stage, so I don't know if they really count. 

Anyway, the one exception was the Scorpions, because I found some of their music with very high quality, and the rest from an audience bootleg with much lower sound quality. The three high quality songs were "Nobody like You," "The Zoo," and "Can't Get Enough." This is because the Westwood One radio network later broadcast highlights of the festival on the radio, and that included those three songs. The audience bootleg was of the entire set, but a lot of it sounded too rough to merit inclusion, in my opinion. For some reason, some of the songs sounded better than others. For instance, "Always Somewhere" is more of a ballad, and was less fast and busy, so perhaps that helped. Anyway, I rescued the other three songs here from that audience boot. Then I processed them in various ways to try to get them to sound better. For instance, I ran them through the MVSEP audio editing program to get rid of most of the crowd noise (except at the ends of songs). I also ran all the songs in this set through the UVR5 audio editing program to improve the balance between the lead vocals and the instruments. Now, all the songs here at least sound decent, but I should warn you the parts from the audience boot probably sound the worst out of anything else I'm posting from this festival.

Anyway, with that out of the way, here's a bit about the Scorpions. They undoubtedly are the most famous and best selling hard rock/heavy metal act to come from Germany. The band was formed way back in 1965, but they didn't put out their first album until 1972. It wasn't until 1979 when they had an album make the charts anywhere, even in Germany. But they sang their songs in English, and from 1979 they started finding a lot of success internationally, including in the U.S. Their 1982 album "Blackout" took them to another level, selling over a million copies in the U.S., helped by the inclusion of "Nobody like You," their biggest hit at that point.

Their next album, "Love at First Sting" in 1984, would be even bigger, selling three million in the U.S. They would have lots of success for many years after that, eventually selling over 100 million albums worldwide. Their 1990 song "Winds of Change" would be one of the biggest singles of all time, selling 14 million worldwide. But in 1983, they were still relatively unknown but rising in popularity.

Oh, and technically, their name is "Scorpions," not "The Scorpions," but this is one of those band name cases like "The Eagles" where most people add the "the."

If you want to know more about the band, here's their Wikipedia page:

Scorpions (band) - Wikipedia

The band's lead singer Klause Meine later recalled a fond memory he had about the band's festival performance. "Going out there, I never forget this because it was an opening, which is really hard to top. Our people had arranged five fighter jets to fly over the stage and over San Bernardino Valley the minute we hit the stage with the first song. That moment, it was like all hell broke loose. There was huge fireworks, and [the announcer] couldn’t finish his introduction because the fire went off, and on top there were five fighter jets flying over the stage. Then we went out and hit the first song. It gives you chills when you think about it. It was so special, and the timing was amazing. One of the best intros of rock history, I would say."

This album is 36 minutes long.

086 talk (Scorpions)
087 Always Somewhere (Scorpions)
088 talk (Scorpions)
089 Nobody like You (Scorpions)
090 Can't Live without You (Scorpions)
091 Dynamite (Scorpions)
092 The Zoo (Scorpions)
093 Can't Get Enough (Scorpions)
094 talk (Scorpions)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9DmZDUb2

The cover photo looks almost staged to me, but it really is of the Scorpions in performance from this exact concert.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-29-1983 - Day 2, Part 5: Triumph

The fifth act to perform on Day Two (Heavy Metal Day) of the 1983 US Festival was the Canadian band Triumph.

Triumph is probably the most surprising inclusion for Heavy Metal Day. Their music is considered more hard rock with a prog rock influence than actual heavy metal. But apparently they were a personal favorite of Steve Wozniak, who bankrolled the entire festival.

The band was formed in 1975, and peaked in popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They are best known today for their 1979 hit "Lay It on the Line," which still gets a lot of play on classic rock stations. Their 1981 album "Allied Forces" was their biggest in the U.S., selling a million copies there. Their 1982 album "Never Surrender" also did well. Most of the songs performed were from those two most recent albums.

Here is the band's Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

Triumph (band) - Wikipedia

This is a rare case of the music from the festival being officially released. The entire set was released as the album "Live at the US Festival" in 2003. However, I found the lead vocals rather low (like all the music from Heavy Metal Day, strangely enough). So I boosted the vocals relative to the instruments with the UVR5 audio editing program. 

 This album is 51 minutes long.

076 Allied Forces (Triumph)
077 Lay It on the Line (Triumph)
078 Never Surrender (Triumph)
079 talk (Triumph)
080 Magic Power (Triumph)
081 A World of Fantasy (Triumph)
082 Rock and Roll Machine [Edit] (Triumph)
083 When the Lights Go Down (Triumph)
084 talk (Triumph)
085 Fight the Good Fight (Triumph)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/819dFUar

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-29-1983 - Day 2, Part 4: Judas Priest

The fourth act on Day Two (Heavy Metal Day) at the 1983 US Festival was the band Judas Priest.

Judas Priest is one of the most famous heavy metal bands of all time. They've sold over 50 million albums worldwide. They were formed way back in 1969, but only really started to take off in the late 1970s. Their big breakthrough was the album "British Steel" in 1980, which allmusic.com has said is the album that "kick-started heavy metal's glory days of the 1980's." It sold over a million copies in the U.S. Their 1982 album "Screaming for Vengeance," which was their most recent album at the time of this festival, did even better. It sold two million in the U.S., helped by the hit single "You've Got Another Thing Comin'." 

So at the time of this festival, they were probably at the peak of their popularity, since no other album would sell nearly as well as "Screaming for Vengeance." However, the band has had a steady career since, and is still in existence as I write this in 2024.

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

Judas Priest - Wikipedia

Gil Moore, drummer for Triumph (the next band to play), later recalled, "The heat for all the bands was tremendous. I remember watching Judas Priest go out. They had on the leather, and it wasn't just a little bit of leather – we're talking pounds and pounds of it. Each one of their outfits must've weighed ten pounds in black leather and studs. I’m laughing – 'these guys are going to absolutely melt.' It’s like 110 degrees, full-on sun."

I found the music here from a soundboard quality bootleg. All of the music is officially unreleased. The lead vocals were low in the mix, so I boosted them using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is an hour and one minute long.

054 talk (Judas Priest)
055 Electric Eye (Judas Priest)
056 Riding on the Wind (Judas Priest)
057 talk (Judas Priest)
058 Heading Out to the Highway (Judas Priest)
059 talk (Judas Priest)
060 Metal Gods (Judas Priest)
061 talk (Judas Priest)
062 Breaking the Law (Judas Priest)
063 talk (Judas Priest)
064 Diamonds and Rust (Judas Priest)
065 talk (Judas Priest)
066 Victim of Changes (Judas Priest)
067 talk (Judas Priest)
068 Living After Midnight (Judas Priest)
069 talk (Judas Priest)
070 The Green Manalishi [With the Two-Pronged Crown] (Judas Priest)
071 talk (Judas Priest)
072 Screaming for Vengeance (Judas Priest)
073 You've Got Another Thing Comin' (Judas Priest)
074 talk (Judas Priest)
075 Hell Bent for Leather (Judas Priest)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/swAhTxDw

The cover photo shows guitarist K.K. Downing at this exact concert.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-29-1983 - Day 2, Part 3: Ozzy Osbourne

The third act on Day Two (Heavy Metal Day) of the 1983 US Festival was singer Ozzy Osbourne.

Osbourne was massively successful at the time of this concert. He was the lead singer of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath from 1968 until 1979, when he was fired due to drug and alcohol problems. But he regrouped and put out two solo albums, "Blizzard of Oz" in 1980 and "Diary of a Madman" in 1981, that sold millions and included classics like "Crazy Train" and "Mr. Crowley." Unfortunately, between that second album and this concert, Osbourne parted ways with most of his backing band. In particular, lead guitarist Randy Rhoads was killed in a car accident in 1982. By the time of this festival, he was replaced by Jake E. Lee.

If you want to know more about Osborne, here's his Wikipedia page:

Ozzy Osbourne - Wikipedia

Osborne later recalled about the festival, "I do remember it being fucking ridiculously hot. I mean, the bands are getting paid all this fucking money for playing a few songs, then there's this fucking immense crowd, and there’s no fucking water for them to drink. It was like being in the middle of a forest fire."

Indeed, it was very hot. The high temperature that day was 95 degrees. That actually was significantly cooler than the 1982 US Festival, when temperatures went well over 100.

The festival was particularly important for Jake E. Lee, since it was his first major concert appearance as lead guitarist in Osbourne's band. He later said, "We came out on stage, just before we started playing because I wanted to make sure my gear was working. I did a couple of chunk-chunks on the guitar, and it was so loud. You could feel the air coming out of the PA and the monitors. The stage kind of rumbled and it felt God-like. It was exhilarating. I was like, 'Holy shit, this is going to be awesome.' And then I looked out, and it was just a sea of people. That's when the enormity of it struck me. I remember thinking, 'This is going to be a moment you’ll remember for the rest of your life.'" 

I sourced this from an excellent sounding bootleg. I believe the set remained unreleased. As with all the rest of the Heavy Metal Day music, the lead vocals were low in the mix so I fixed that using the UVR5 audio editing program.

The songs mostly come from the two Osbourne albums mentioned above, but several songs from Black Sabbath were played as well.

This album is an hour and nine minutes long.

030 talk (Ozzy Osbourne)
031 Diary of a Madman (Ozzy Osbourne)
032 Over the Mountain (Ozzy Osbourne)
033 Mr. Crowley (Ozzy Osbourne)
034 talk (Ozzy Osbourne)
035 Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne)
036 talk (Ozzy Osbourne)
037 Suicide Solution (Ozzy Osbourne)
038 talk (Ozzy Osbourne)
039 Revelation [Mother Earth] (Ozzy Osbourne)
040 Steal Away [The Night] (Ozzy Osbourne)
041 Drum Solo [Instrumental] (Ozzy Osbourne)
042 talk (Ozzy Osbourne)
043 I Don’t Know (Ozzy Osbourne)
044 talk (Ozzy Osbourne)
045 Flying High Again (Ozzy Osbourne)
046 talk (Ozzy Osbourne)
047 Fairies Wear Boots (Ozzy Osbourne)
048 talk (Ozzy Osbourne)
049 Iron Man (Ozzy Osbourne)
050 Children of the Grave (Ozzy Osbourne)
051 talk (Ozzy Osbourne)
052 Paranoid (Ozzy Osbourne)
053 talk (Ozzy Osbourne)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dT1WX2Zz

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-29-1983 - Day 2, Part 2: Motley Crue

The second act on Day Two (Heavy Metal Day) of the 1983 US Festival was the band Motley Crue.

As I write this decades later, Motley Crue is one of the best known heavy metal bands, having sold over 100 million albums worldwide. But at the time they were relatively little known, so much so that it's kind of remarkable they were included in the festival at all. They had only released one album at this point, "Too Fast for Love," and it had sold well under 100,000 copies at the time. In 1983, their second album "Shout at the Devil" would be their big breakthrough, selling four million copies in the U.S. alone. But that wouldn't be released until September, four months after this festival. Still, the band played about the same number of songs from each album, plus a cover of "Helter Skelter" by the Beatles.

Here's the band's Wikipedia page, if you want to know more:

Mötley Crüe - Wikipedia

Drummer Tommy Lee later recalled, "I remember arriving by helicopter and looking down on something I'd never, ever seen before – 300,000 people! Whoa! I was really excited and fucking nervous all at once. Kinda felt like puking, actually. When we got onstage – holy shit! We renamed it the Dust Festival. A sea of people in dust. I'll never forget that." 

That 300,000 people number is close, but it actually was even larger. The estimate for Heavy Metal Day was about 375,000 people, which was significantly more than any of the other days of the festival. 

I found a soundboard worthy bootleg of this band's entire set. I believe all of their set remains officially unreleased. The lead vocals were low in the mix, so I fixed that with the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is 42 minutes long.

015 Take It to the Top (Motley Crue)
016 Looks that Kill (Motley Crue)
017 talk (Motley Crue)
018 Bastard (Motley Crue)
019 Shout at the Devil (Motley Crue)
020 talk (Motley Crue)
021 Merry-Go-Round (Motley Crue)
022 Knock 'Em Dead Kid (Motley Crue)
023 talk (Motley Crue)
024 Piece of Your Action (Motley Crue)
025 talk (Motley Crue)
026 Live Wire (Motley Crue)
027 talk (Motley Crue)
028 Helter Skelter (Motley Crue)
029 talk (Motley Crue) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jHDnkEBg

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-29-1983 - Day 2, Part 1: Quiet Riot

To be honest, I never thought I would post albums by the likes of Quiet Riot. But Day Two of the 1983 US Festival was called "Heavy Metal Day" by the organizers, and all the acts fell into that genre (more or less). I'm simply not of fan of this music. However, I do want to post as much of the festival as I can, and this is a part of it. Posting festivals like this sometimes causes me to expand the types of music I share, which is probably a good thing overall.

I don't know much about Quiet Riot. But it seems this band had a lot of turmoil and personnel turnover. They existed for much of the 1970s, but had limited success putting out two albums, both of which were only released in Japan. After breaking up entirely for two years, the band reformed for the 1983 album "Metal Health." This was a huge success, selling about ten million copies worldwide. The album was released in February, and its popularity was still growing at the time of this concert. In November, it would briefly hit Number One in the US album charts. 

However, the band's huge success was short-lived. Their 1984 album sold far less, and all subsequent albums dropped off even more, as turmoil and personnel turnover resumed. If you want to know more, here's their Wikipedia page:

Quiet Riot - Wikipedia

The band was a very last minute addition to the festival. Bassist Rudy Sarzo later recalled, "Quiet Riot was on tour with the Scorpions. We shared the same agency, and they were playing a three-week warmup tour for the US Festival. We did that little tour with them, and the last day of their tour was in Denver. And [US Festival promoter] Barry Fey happened to be backstage, and after our set, he runs in and introduces himself. He says, 'Listen, we have a spot available for the US Festival. Would you guys be interested?' And we said, 'What is that?'" Sarzo laughed.

"He explained what it was, we looked at each other, and our manager happened to be there, and we accepted it right there on the spot. This is two days before the show. Logistically, we had to scramble to make it happen. It meant we had no road crew for the US Festival because our crew was driving our rented U-Haul truck to our gig the day after the US Festival in Detroit."

I took this music from a video file, then converted it into mp3s. I believe all of it is unreleased. The vocals were rather low, so I used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost them relative to the instruments.

This album is 41 minutes long.

001 talk (Quiet Riot)
002 Danger Zone (Quiet Riot)
003 Run for Cover (Quiet Riot)
004 talk (Quiet Riot)
005 Love's a Bitch (Quiet Riot)
006 talk (Quiet Riot)
007 Cum On Feel the Noize (Quiet Riot)
008 Slick Black Cadillac (Quiet Riot)
009 talk (Quiet Riot)
010 Let's Get Crazy (Quiet Riot)
011 Battle Axe [Instrumental] (Quiet Riot)
012 Let's Get Crazy [Reprise] (Quiet Riot)
013 talk (Quiet Riot)
014 Metal Health [Bang Your Head] (Quiet Riot)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Y6en4Bdi

This cover photo is from this exact concert. Rudy Sarzo is on the left and Kevin DuBrow is on the right.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-28-1983 - Day 1, Part 9: The Clash

The ninth and final act to perform on the first day of the 1983 US Festival was the Clash. 

I'm excited to present this album because there aren't that many Clash concert recordings with excellent sound. This one seems to have been overlooked as an audio recording - I could only find poor sounding audience bootlegs of this show. But it turns out there was an excellent video of the set, which I then converted to mp3 files. In my opinion, this is now one of a handful of the best Clash live recordings out there, so this is a must have if you're a fan of the band.

Adding interest, this is the very last concert of what some people would consider the "real" Clash. The two main creative forces in the band were Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, who wrote or co-wrote nearly all of the songs. This turned out to be the last concert with Jones in the band. He was kicked out of the band a few months later. The band put out one more album after that, "Cut the Crap" in 1985, but it has a very controversial reputation.

One might think the band was falling apart at this point, so the performance was poor. In fact, the opposite was the case. The band gave a strong and passionate performance. But there's a weird back story to it which I want to relate in full.

In 1983, the Clash were riding high commercially, thanks to their 1982 hit album "Combat Rock," with two big hit singles, "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go." As a result, they were the closer for the first day, "New Wave Day," and one of the main headliners for the entire festival. The closers for the other two nights were Van Halen and David Bowie. It turned out the Clash were paid half a million dollars to perform, whereas Van Halen was originally to be paid a million dollars. However, Bowie was doing a concert tour in Europe at the time, and held out to be paid a million and a half dollars. The main backer of the festival, Steve Wozniak, had deep pockets after becoming a multimillionaire thanks to his role cofounding Apple Computers. So he agreed to pay a million and a half to Bowie. Then it turned out Van Halen had a provision in their contract that they got to be paid as much as any other act in the festival. So their million got bumped up to a million and a half as well.

This left the Clash feeling miffed. Wozniak was paying huge sums left and right, especially to headlining acts, and the Clash probably could have held out for a lot more. But at the same time, the band had a punk reputation as being anti-capitalist, so it would have hurt their reputation to demand more. The band threaded this needle by demanding an extra $100,000, but insisting that it all be given to local charities to help the poor. Apparently, the promoters agreed to this before the concert began, but nothing was written down. As the time came for the Clash to go on stage, they got wind that that part of the agreement wasn't going to be honored after all. So instead of performing, the band gave an impromptu press conference backstage, insisting the promoters honor their deal to give some money to charity.

Wozniak later said, "The Clash made a bit of a stink, taking some sort of workingman's revolutionary stance."

Brian Setzer, a member of the Stray Cats, later recalled, "I remember they had a press conference going on. I asked [Clash bassist] Paul Simonon, 'What are you guys doin'? Aren't you supposed to be on stage?' He just shrugged his shoulders and laughed."

It took a lot of backstage bickering, but eventually some agreement to give some money to charity was agreed upon. As a result, the band went on stage two hours late!

One of the concert organizers Mark Bliesener later said, "It was just such an angry gig for them. Strummer could not get across to the crowd – at one point he was demanding hostility from them. There was so much rancor all night: were the Clash going on, were they not going on? And there was always an attitude about that band in the industry, especially a lot of American crews and promoters, because they just could not dig what that band was about."

But this could help explain why the band played great that night - they often did their best in a hostile situation. There even is a fitting line in the Clash song "Clampdown": "The fury of the hour, anger can be power, did you know that you can use it?"

Partway through the concert, something else happened that probably pissed off the band even more. Concert promoter Berry Fey later said, "They were bitching about money, but that's why we put a copy of the check up on the video screen – during their set – showing that they got half a million dollars."

However, the drama didn't end when their set was over. Bliesener later explained, "So when the Clash came off... the stage announcer got on the mic in this phony British accent, saying, 'You can shout as loud as you want, but the Clash have left the building.' It was just so obnoxious. Immediately, a fistfight broke out. The Clash's crew were just all over this guy. I think [bassist] Paul [Simonon] might have thrown a punch. But they felt goaded, and the atmosphere was so thick with exhaustion, tension, and testosterone. It was a horrible night, just in terms of the vibe of everything."

Regarding the recording, as I mentioned above, it sounds excellent, definitely on par with a soundboard. However, there are three songs with issues. The end of the first song was cut off ("London Calling"), continuing into most of the second song ("This Is Radio Clash"). Also, part of the fourth song ("Rock the Casbah") was also missing. Luckily, I found an audience bootleg and used that other recording to fill in the missing parts. That's why those three songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. But one can easily hear the drop in sound quality for those parts.

This album is an hour an 18 minutes long.

134 talk (Clash)
135 London Calling [Edit] (Clash)
136 This Is Radio Clash [Edit] (Clash)
137 Somebody Got Murdered (Clash)
138 talk (Clash)
139 Rock the Casbah [Edit] (Clash)
140 Guns of Brixton (Clash)
141 Know Your Rights (Clash)
142 Koka Kola (Clash)
143 Hate or War (Clash)
144 talk (Clash)
145 Armagideon Time (Clash)
146 talk (Clash)
147 Sound of the Sinners (Clash)
148 talk (Clash)
149 Safe European Home (Clash)
150 Police on My Back (Clash)
151 Brand New Cadillac (Clash)
152 I Fought the Law (Clash)
153 I'm So Bored with the USA (Clash)
154 Train in Vain (Clash)
155 The Magnificent Seven (Clash)
156 talk (Clash)
157 Straight to Hell (Clash)
158 Should I Stay or Should I Go (Clash)
159 Clampdown (Clash)
160 talk (Clash)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WnhHvZc7

The cover photo shows Joe Strummer and Mick Jones from this exact concert.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-28-1983 - Day 1, Part 8: Men at Work

The eighth act on the first day of the 1983 US Festival was the band Men at Work.

Men at Work was an Australian band that that was massively popular for a couple of years in the early 1980s, then broke up. They put out the albums "Business as Usual" in 1981 and "Cargo" in 1983. Two songs from their debut album, "Down Under" and "Who Can It Be Now," hit Number One in the singles chart in the U.S. and many other countries. They had a number of other hits as well, eventually selling about 30 million albums worldwide, mainly from these two albums.

Unfortunately, then the band had a falling out. The drummer and bass player left, apparently mainly over thinking their manager wasn't very good. A third album, "Two Hearts," came out in 1985, but wasn't well received and sold poorly compared to before. They broke up after that. Lead singer Colin Hay went on to a long but much more low key solo career.

Here's their Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:

Men at Work - Wikipedia 

This is another case where I found a video of the entire set, then converted it to mp3 files. The lead vocals were a little low in the mix, so I boosted them using UVR5. It's particularly nice to have this because there is no official live album from the band's early 1980's heyday. (There is one from a later reunion in Brazil, with most of the original band members gone.)

This album is an hour and one minute long.

114 I Can See It in Your Eyes (Men at Work)
115 talk (Men at Work)
116 No Restrictions (Men at Work)
117 Mr. Entertainer (Men at Work)
118 The Longest Night (Men at Work)
119 talk (Men at Work)
120 Blue for You (Men at Work)
121 Who Can It Be Now (Men at Work)
122 talk (Men at Work)
123 Helpless Automaton (Men at Work)
124 I Like To (Men at Work)
125 Underground (Men at Work)
126 talk (Men at Work)
127 Overkill (Men at Work)
128 talk (Men at Work)
129 Down Under (Men at Work)
130 talk (Men at Work)
131 It's a Mistake (Men at Work)
132 talk (Men at Work)
133 Be Good Johnny (Men at Work)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fRkhtXN1

The cover photo shows Colin Hay, lead singer of the band, at this exact concert.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-28-1983 - Day 1, Part 7: The Stray Cats

The seventh act to perform on the first day of the 1983 US Festival was the band the Stray Cats.

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://pixeldrain.com/u/E835tHwB

The cover photo shows the band's lead singer Brian Setzer at this exact concert.

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://pixeldrain.com/u/VugGM2sy

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

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-28-1983 - Day 1, Part 5: The English Beat

The fifth album on the first day of the 1983 US Festival is by the band the English Beat.

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://pixeldrain.com/u/Wb7MfLfm

The album cover shows the band's two lead singers, Ranking Roger (left) and Dave Wakeling (right) at this exact concert.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-28-1983 - Day 1, Part 4: Oingo Boingo

The fourth act from the first day of the 1983 US Festival was a set by the band Oingo Boingo.

This is the only album from the 1983 US Festival that I already posted at this blog. In December 2022, I converted a video of this set into mp3 files because I couldn't find many concerts by this band with excellent sound quality. This album is exactly the same as the version I previously posted, except with a different album cover and the tracks renumbered. (I'll be deleting the previous version I'd posted here in favor of this one.)

I've written a bunch about Oingo Boingo already with other albums I've posted by them, so I won't do that again here. But I just want to say that I think they peaked around 1983 in terms of creativity and energy, so this is a really excellent performance, and the sound quality is great too. By the way, all the music here remains unreleased.

This album is 57 minutes long.

037 talk (Oingo Boingo)
038 Cry of the Vatos [Instrumental] (Oingo Boingo)
039 Dead or Alive (Oingo Boingo)
040 Ain't This the Life (Oingo Boingo)
041 Who Do You Want to Be (Oingo Boingo)
042 talk (Oingo Boingo)
043 No Spill Blood (Oingo Boingo)
044 Private Life (Oingo Boingo)
045 talk (Oingo Boingo)
046 Grey Matter (Oingo Boingo)
047 Insects (Oingo Boingo)
048 Wild Sex [In the Working Class] (Oingo Boingo)
049 Nothing to Fear [But Fear Itself] (Oingo Boingo)
050 talk (Oingo Boingo)
051 Violent Love (Oingo Boingo)
052 talk (Oingo Boingo)
053 Sweat (Oingo Boingo)
054 talk (Oingo Boingo)
055 Capitalism (Oingo Boingo)
056 On the Outside (Oingo Boingo)
057 talk (Oingo Boingo)
058 Goodbye Goodbye (Oingo Boingo)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7t9TXrZw

The cover image is from this exact concert. 

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://pixeldrain.com/u/3fGV82sJ

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

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-28-1983 - Day 1, Part 2: INXS

The second act on the first day of the 1983 US Festival was the Australian band INXS. 

INXS would eventually go on to become massively successful worldwide - they've sold at least 75 million records. But the vast majority of that success came after this festival. At the time of the festival, they had some striking similarities to the first act, Divinyls. Both bands were from Australia, were formed in 1980, and were just starting to break internationally. In the case of INXS, they had put out three albums by the time of the festival, but only their most recent one, 1982's "Shoobah Shoobah," had been released in the U.S. at that point. It contained one hit in the U.S., "The One Thing," which made it to Number 30 in the singles charts. Another song from the album, "Don't Change," only made it to Number 80 in the charts. However, it would go on to become one of the band's best known songs, eventually making it to a couple of lists of the best Australian songs of all time.

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

INXS - Wikipedia

The band's entire set is included here. It's still a relatively short set though, since the band wasn't well known at the time. Four of the songs eventually officially released as bonus tracks on a 40th anniversary version of their "Shoobah Shoobah" album. But the sound quality of all of these are equally excellent.

This album is 36 minutes long.

Note that, for the track numbers, these continue where the numbers from the previous act left off. I'm continuing that pattern for the rest of the first day of the festival, in case some people want to easily listen to the entire day in order. Then I'll start the count again for day two, and so on.

008 talk (INXS)
009 Soul Mistake (INXS)
010 Here Comes (INXS)
011 talk (INXS)
012 Jan's Song (INXS)
013 Spy of Love (INXS)
014 talk (INXS)
015 To Look at You (INXS)
016 talk (INXS)
017 The One Thing (INXS)
018 talk (INXS)
019 Old World New World (INXS)
020 Black and White (INXS)
021 talk (INXS)
022 Don't Change (INXS)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LFoyPqt2

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows the band's lead singer, Michael Hutchence.

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

I haven't been posting much recently, for two main reasons. One, I wanted to see if the recent spate of over a dozen albums being taken down for copyright reasons would continue or not. I'm happy to say that since my last announcement about that on July 30, 2024, I believe there's only been one more take down (David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust - Acoustic Mixes). So let's that one big flurry of taken downs was a unique event.

The other reason is that I've been working hard posting another epic music festival. This time, it's the 1983 US Festival. There actually were two US Festivals, one in 1982 and the other in 1983. Both of them happened due to Steve Wozniak, one of cofounders of the Apple Computer company. He already had made a ton of money by 1981, but early that year he was in an airplane crash that changed the course of his life. He survived with only relatively minor injuries, but that included brain trauma as well as amnesia. While recovering, he took leave from Apple and went back to college under an alias. 

Around that same time, he conceived of the US Festivals. As a very rich person (his current net worth is estimated to be $140 million, even after donating much of his fortune to charity), these were basically vanity projects where he was able to put on a couple of the greatest concerts of all time, featuring most of the big names in music from those years. It's estimated he lost about $5 million on the first festival and about $10 million on the second one. He decided against doing another one in 1984 or after, probably because he got involved in running businesses instead, including returning to Apple for a time. Apparently, he took part in an effort to stage another one around 2010, and spent about a million dollars on it, but it ran into too many difficulties and he gave up.

The US Festivals were some of the biggest and most important rock festivals of all time. In fact, I believe this 1983 one had the largest attendance of any rock concert up until that point. But they seem strangely forgotten today. I found a 2012 article in the Orange County Register looking back of the festivals, and that article made that same point: "The US Festivals, fondly remembered by Gen-X’ers who witnessed it live or on cable television, now seem mostly forgotten... There’s little awareness of how they bridged the storied events of the '60s and '70s (like Woodstock) with first the outpouring of generosity that was Live Aid in 1985 and then the multi-stage festivals that launched in the '90s, whether touring productions like Lollapalooza and H.O.R.D.E. caravans or stationary shindigs like Woodstock '94 and '99."

I really wanted to post these festivals on my blog because of their importance and all the great music played at both. However, I thought that wasn't possible due to the lack of worthy recordings from them. Very little has been officially released from either (though there are some exceptions I will discuss with later albums from the festival). Long ago, I looked for bootlegs, and most of them were audience recordings that sounded pretty bad. So I had basically given up. 

But recently, I discovered that, for the 1983 US Festival especially, there were lots of professionally recorded videos of entire performances that had soundboard-worthy sound quality, but only existed in video form. So I gave myself the challenge of presenting as much of the festival as possible, all with worthy sound quality. I'm happy to say that I was able to find about 90 percent of what I wanted, which is way more than what I expected when I started this. But it was a lot of work, first converting videos to audio, and then editing the sound files to make improvements. 

I don't think anyone has ever come close to publicly presenting the music from this festival like I'm going to present it now. (That's probably a big reason why the festivals have slipped from public consciousness, because there aren't widely available recordings from them.)

The 1983 US Festival took place over four days, all at the same location (the Glen Helen Regional Park, with a concert venue newly created for the US festivals). Each day had a different musical theme. May 28th was "New Wave Day," May 29th was "Heavy Metal Day," May 30th was "Rock Day," and June 4th was "Country Day." (Note the several day gap between Country Day and the rest, since it was assumed the country audience would be almost entirely different from the rest.)

Nine musical acts performed on the first day, New Wave Day. I will be posting albums from all nine. I have the full sets of most of them. Unfortunately, for the first act, Divinyls, I only have a partial set. In addition to the four songs here, it is known they played "I'll Make You Happy" (an Easybeats cover), "Only You," "Only Lonely," and "Siren." What I have comes from a video of their performance. If anyone has more, please let me know and I'll add it in.

Divinyls were an Australian group. They're best known in the U.S. for their 1990 hit "I Touch Myself." At the time of this festival, they were just starting to get famous. They had formed in 1980, and put out one album by the time of the festival. They'd had two hits in Australia only, "Science Fiction" and "Boys in Town."

Here's their Wikipedia page in you want to know more:

Divinyls - Wikipedia

This album is 19 minutes long.

001 talk (Divinyls)
002 Elsie (Divinyls)
003 Science Fiction (Divinyls)
004 talk (Divinyls)
005 Boys in Town (Divinyls)
006 Don't You Go Walking (Divinyls)
007 talk (Divinyls)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NmNMuNyH

I could have used a photo of the Divinyls on stage in the festival for the album cover, but I wanted one cover showing the sheer size of the festival, so I picked this, the very first act. It's estimated about 700,000 people attended, making it slightly larger than previous huge festivals like the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. But the maximum at any one time was probably around 350,000, on Heavy Metal Day.

The Greg Kihn Band - Henry Maier Festival Park Stage, Milwaukee, WI, 7-4-1983

Greg Kihn died two days ago as I write this in August 2024. He died from complications related to Alzheimer's disease, at the age of 75. I'm not a big fan of his music by any means. I basically only knew his two big hits, "The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em)" and "Jeopardy." But to mark his passing and honor his music career, I decided to post something, and this album is the result.

At first, I went looking to see if there were any BBC concerts worth posting, since I make a point of trying to post lots of BBC material in general. It turns out there were, BBC concerts from 1981 and 1983. However, both of them were relatively short, well less than an hour long. I decided I like this concert a lot better. I think if one were to get just one Greg Kihn concert, it would be this one. For one thing, it look place in 1983, just after the release of his second big hit, "Jeopardy." But also, it contains an unusual amount of interesting cover versions of classic songs - I count eight, including the last five songs in a row. Most of those were never released on album by him. So that makes it easier to get into this, even if you don't know a lot of Kihn's original songs. 

As far as I know, this is officially unreleased. The sound quality is excellent because it was broadcast live at the time on a radio station. I found a bunch of different versions of this, but this one is rare in that it contains the complete concert.

This album is an hour and 29 minutes long.

01 Paint, It Black (Greg Kihn Band)
02 Fascination (Greg Kihn Band)
03 Tear That City Down (Greg Kihn Band)
04 [Get Your Kicks On] Route 66 (Greg Kihn Band)
05 Talking to Myself (Greg Kihn Band)
06 Happy Man (Greg Kihn Band)
07 Every Love Song (Greg Kihn Band)
08 Someday (Greg Kihn Band)
09 talk (Greg Kihn Band)
10 Jeopardy (Greg Kihn Band)
11 I Fall to Pieces (Greg Kihn Band)
12 Too Bad (Greg Kihn Band)
13 Can't Stop Hurtin' Myself (Greg Kihn Band)
14 The Breakup Song [They Don't Write 'Em] (Greg Kihn Band)
15 Testify (Greg Kihn Band)
16 Roadrunner (Greg Kihn Band)
17 Train Kept A-Rollin' (Greg Kihn Band)
18 Just My Imagination [Running Away with Me] (Greg Kihn Band)
19 Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Greg Kihn Band)
20 talk (Greg Kihn Band)
21 The Kids Are Alright (Greg Kihn Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16979573/TGREGKHNBND1983HnryMierFstivlPrkStgeMlwukeWI__7-4-1983_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from 1983, but I don't know the details.

Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1966-1969

Have you ever heard of Geno Washington? I had, but almost entirely because I knew he was the subject of the Dexys Midnight Runners song "Geno," which was a Number One hit in Britain in 1980. He was an American black man who was a soul singer in Britain in the 1960s. He had quite a few BBC sessions, enough for this album here, though I believe all these performances remain unreleased.

Washington had a pretty interesting history. In the mid-1960s, Britain felt in love with American soul music, but there almost no American soul singers living in Britain. Washington was serving in the US Air Force, and happened to be stationed in England. He started as a stand-in for various local bands when their regular singers didn't show up. He did so well that he was invited to join a band, which became the Ram Jam Band. Sensing opportunity, he decided to stay in England when his time in the military ended. 

To be honest, his music wasn't really great, as it mostly consisted of covers of big soul hits that didn't differ much from their originals. But he became a huge concert draw. A live album, "Hand Clappin, Foot Stompin, Funky-Butt... Live!" was released in 1966. It turned out to be one of the best selling albums in Britain for several years. It only got to Number Five in the album charts, but it was a very steady seller, staying in the Top Ten for three months. A very similar live album was released a year later, and also did very well. In addition, there were about four minor hit singles.

However, musical trends were changing quickly at the time. Soul music fell out of favor starting in 1967, replaced by psychedelic music, then other trends, like hard rock, prog rock, and blues. The Ram Jam Band broke up in 1969, and Washington returned to the U.S. He quit the music business altogether and instead studied hypnotism and meditation. He resumed a music career in the mid-1970s, and continues performing all the way until today (as I write this in 2024). Apparently, his concerts now combine a hypnotism show, followed by a set of music.

Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:

Geno Washington - Wikipedia 

The sound quality of all the songs here is excellent. However, you'll notice over half have "[Edit]" in their titles. That's due to the usual problem of BBC DJs (especially Brian Matthew) talking over the music. I did my usual thing of using the audio editing program UVR5 to wipe out the talking while keeping the underlying music.

I also didn't include three songs: "I Can't Turn You Loose," "Don't Fight It," and "Hi-Heel Sneakers," That's because he did two versions of those that were nearly identical, so I only kept one. But I did keep two versions of "Land of a Thousand Dances" because they were done very differently. The first version here is done the same as the hit version made famous by Wilson Pickett, but the second one is a more interesting slow version.

This album is 57 minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 20, 2026, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same. However, I renamed the album to "Volume 1" after finding a concert to post as "Volume 2." That meant changing the cover art and the mp3 tags too.

01 Don't Fight It (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
02 Hi Hi Hazel (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
03 Water [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
04 Land of a Thousand Dances (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
05 Que Sera Sera [Whatever Will Be, Will Be] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
06 You Don't Know like I Know (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
07 Knock on Wood (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
08 I Can't Turn You Loose (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
09 In the Midnight Hour (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
10 Michael [The Lover] [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
11 You've Got Me Hummin' [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
12 She Shot a Hole in My Soul (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
13 Raise Your Hand [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
14 Tell It Like It Is (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
15 Jumpin' Jack Flash [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
16 I Can't Quit Her [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
17 Baby Come Back [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
18 I Got You Babe [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
19 Bring It to Me Baby [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
20 Hi-Heel Sneakers [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
21 Roadie's Blues [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)
22 Land of a Thousand Dances [Slow Version] [Edit] (Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wpX8wczN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/CRSjVShNblYYBcc/file

I saw very few color photos of Geno Washington in his 1960s heyday. Luckily I found just one good one, which is what I used here. I don't know the details except it was taken in 1966.

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: In Concert, Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-7-1990

Here's another nice Rolling Stones concert for the BBC, this one from 1990.

The Rolling Stones had a lot of problems for most of the 1980s, effectively breaking up for a couple of years. But they got back together with a new studio album in 1989, "Steel Wheels," and then had their first concert tour since the one started in 1981. It was their longest and most lucrative by far at that point in the band's history. By the time of this concert, the name of the tour had changed from "Steel Wheels" to "Urban Jungle," the set list had changed, and the set design had been redone. The tour came to an end about a month after this.

One thing I like about this concert is that it was still done with what I consider the "real" Stones, meaning when the band still had five long-term band members in it. At the end of the tour, bassist Bill Wyman would retire permanently. Many years later, in 2021, drummer Charlie Watts died. So now, as I write this, the band is technically only a trio of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood, plus backing musicians. 

The band's 1989 "Steel Wheels" was pretty good, but it was hard for it to complete with all the classic albums and songs they'd done previously. They played five songs from that album in this concert: "Sad Sad Sad," "Almost Hear You Sigh," "Rock and a Hard Place," "Mixed Emotions," and "Can't Be Seen." However, "Can't Be Seen" wasn't included in the BBC broadcast for some reason, so it's the only song played that isn't included here either. (I'm not counting an instrumental recording of part of the song "Continental Drift" that was played right before the concert began.)

That means the other 19 songs were from the band's previous albums, and pretty much every single one of them was a popular classic. So this is the nearly the last excellent recording of the version of the band with Bill Wyman firing on all cylinders. As far as I know, this remains unreleased.

The only problem with this album's sound quality was the vocals were a bit low in the mix. So I used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost the vocals.

This album is two hours and ten minutes long.

01 Continental Drift [Instrumental Version] (Rolling Stones)
02 Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
03 Sad Sad Sad (Rolling Stones)
04 Harlem Shuffle (Rolling Stones)
05 Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones)
06 talk (Rolling Stones)
07 Miss You (Rolling Stones)
08 talk (Rolling Stones)
09 Almost Hear You Sigh (Rolling Stones)
10 talk (Rolling Stones)
11 Ruby Tuesday (Rolling Stones)
12 talk (Rolling Stones)
13 Angie (Rolling Stones)
14 talk (Rolling Stones)
15 Rock and a Hard Place (Rolling Stones)
16 talk (Rolling Stones)
17 Mixed Emotions (Rolling Stones)
18 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
19 Midnight Rambler (Rolling Stones)
20 talk (Rolling Stones)
21 You Can't Always Get What You Want (Rolling Stones)
22 talk (Rolling Stones)
23 Happy (Rolling Stones)
24 Paint It, Black (Rolling Stones)
25 2000 Light Years from Home (Rolling Stones)
26 Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones)
27 Street Fighting Man (Rolling Stones)
28 Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)
29 It's Only Rock 'N Roll [But I Like It] (Rolling Stones)
30 talk (Rolling Stones)
31 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
32 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
33 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dAbprsDr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mE8IcjOnqlrTdPJ/file

The cover photo is of the band from this exact venue, Wembley Stadium, but about a month later. From left to right, that's Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman.

U2 - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: 2000-2009

This album consists of BBC studio sessions performed by U2 from 2000 to 2009, though there was a very small studio audience for some of the songs.

U2 performed some BBC studio sessions in the early 1980s, when they were just starting to get famous. Later in the 1980s, they did some full concerts that were broadcast by the BBC. Then I don't think they did anything for the BBC for the entire 1990s. 

That takes us to 2000. That year, the band released the album "All that You Can't Leave Behind." The first five songs are from a BBC session promoting that album. Tracks 6 to 11 are from a 2004 session. The remainder are from two different sessions in 2009.

I cut out a few songs because they were essentially repeats without much variation. I don't remember what I cut out exactly, but I think there were two more versions of "Beautiful Day." As it is, I included two versions of that song here. Four would have been way too much, in my opinion. These two versions differ in that one includes a snippet of the Pogues song "A Rainy Night in Soho," and the other includes a snippet of the Beatles song "Blackbird." There also are two versions of "Vertigo." The first one is just the song done in a standard way. The second one includes snippets of "Substitute" by the Who and "She Loves You" and "Dig It," both by the Beatles.

This album is an hour and one minute long.

UPDATE: On February 15, 2026, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same, but I renumbered the album after finding an earlier album in this series that I'd missed.

01 Elevation (U2)
02 New York (U2)
03 Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of (U2)
04 Beautiful Day - A Rainy Night in Soho (U2)
05 She's a Mystery to Me (U2)
06 Vertigo (U2)
07 All Because of You (U2)
08 talk (U2)
09 Miracle Drug (U2)
10 talk (U2)
11 Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own (U2)
12 Get on Your Boots (U2)
13 Beautiful Day - Blackbird (U2)
14 Breathe (U2)
15 talk (U2)
16 Magnificent (U2)
17 talk (U2)
18 Vertigo - Substitute - She Loves You - Dig It (U2)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ocr1ENj1

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5OIrnWD1L4oXPN3/file

The cover photo of Bono and The Edge comes from a BBC performance, but not one of the ones featured here. It's from Top of the Pops at BBC Television Centre on October 15, 2004.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 3, Part 17: Peter Gabriel

The 17th and final album from the Woodstock '94 Festival is a set by Peter Gabriel. That also makes it the final album of the entire festival.

I'm not sure why Gabriel was chosen as the final act of the festival. It's not the most enviable spot. For instance, Jimi Hendrix closed out the 1969 Woodstock Festival, but by the time he came on, the vast majority of the crowd had left! I don't know if that was the case for this festival or not. Probably way more were there, because one can see the video of this set, and the audience still looks huge. 

In any case, Gabriel may have gotten the spot because he had more involvement in the festival than most acts. I imagine he had a large role in the WOMAD world music section of the festival that took place earlier on Day Three, and he even performed a bit during that. After all, WOMAD is its own annual musical festival and/or tour that Gabriel has been deeply involved in.

By this point in his career, Gabriel usually took quite a few years between albums. His most recent album at the time was "Us," released in 1992. I guess he was still touring to support that, and he played a bunch of songs from that album. As an aside, one of Gabriel's backing singers at the time was Paula Cole. She would have a couple of big hits of her own a couple of years later. She has a prominent vocal role in the first song, "Come Talk to Me."

Youssou N’Dour performed at the festival on Day Two. He helped sing two songs in this set as well, "Shaking the Tree" and "In Your Eyes." He was on the studio recordings for both.

That's the end of all my postings for this massive festival. Thanks for your patience with the unusually long time it took to get all of these posted. 

This album is an hour and 31 minutes long.

01 Come Talk to Me (Peter Gabriel)
02 Quiet Steam (Peter Gabriel)
03 Shaking the Tree (Peter Gabriel with Youssou N’Dour)
04 San Jacinto (Peter Gabriel)
05 Red Rain (Peter Gabriel)
06 Solsbury Hill (Peter Gabriel)
07 Digging in the Dirt (Peter Gabriel)
08 Sledgehammer (Peter Gabriel)
09 Secret World (Peter Gabriel)
10 In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel with Youssou N’Dour)
11 Biko [Edit] (Peter Gabriel)
12 talk (Peter Gabriel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ig92YR5T

The cover photo is from this exact concert.