US, the Ultimate Rock Festival
The US Festival was a central event in a central decade
Labor Day weekend has always held a great amount of cache in my life, being, for many years, a clear and dreaded demarcation between summer and back-to-school. Later it became associated with a positively life-altering trip to the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle in 2000, and still later for being the sad weekend my 98-year-old friend Bill Engvick, a successful lyricist from the golden age of song died in 2012.
Most pertinently, a little over 40 years ago Labor Day meant the US Festival, an event those of US who were there likely still remember as an unprecedented gathering of the best rock music talent of the time, and a look at the more promising, positive aspects of technology.
As a music reviewer for the Contra Costa Times suburban daily newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California - one of four lizard kings - I road-tripped down I-5 with my exciting new friend Sylvia to Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernardino, where my US Festival press pass gave us unique access to performers, typewriters, and a genuine oasis to which we could escape from the overheated masses.
From the size of the event, and the extraordinary guest list, the most obvious comparison would be with Woodstock - only 13 years before! - but the US Festival was no Woodstock.
As I wrote in my piece “A lizard reflects on the US Festival,” published September 17, 1982 in the Contra Costa Times (reproduced below):
“There was no comparison with Woodstock…The US Festival demonstrated amazing organization for its size. There were no gatecrashers or deaths. The only baby present was [Steve] Wozniak’s son, born on Friday night… And Woodstock had no commercial sponsors.”
Not to mention, rather than torrential rains, this time OPPRESSIVE HEAT was the order of the day, which led to the popularity of the spray bottle above, which I still own and use to water my baby cacti. They say global warming is new, but here is evidence of 130-degree heat 40 years ago. As I wrote:
“Water spray bottles were the most popular souvenirs of the event - temperatures climbed up to 130 degrees in the dusty San Bernardino desert - and to have one gave its possessor a free license to squirt anyone in sight. Nobody complained…”
Another attendee writes that,
“The weather was so hot that these bottles were used to keep cool. It became a standard greeting at the fest to spray each other.”
(Dare I say, this might not fly today as many modern folk would likely run away for fear of their cell phones getting wet, or scared of a deadly virus.)
Nonetheless, the attempt to inculcate our recalcitrant new wave generation with a peace and love - US! - ethos indeed gave it a Woodstock-ian vibe that in retrospect seems optimistic and beautiful. On the cusp of the explosion in home and office computing, there was tangible hope that the new technology will usher in a better, more connected, more loving future.
One thing it ushered in was sound and video technology that would revolutionize the production of large concerts. Rolling Stone magazine at the time called the US Festival sound system simply “the best outdoor sound-system ever constructed.” The gigantic 300 x 67 foot stage was flanked by huge eidaphor projectors, topped by a large Diamond Vision screen.
Another thing the US Festival certainly presaged was the rise of the Music Festival. Presciently, I wrote:
“One could even look at the US Festival as the prototype for rock shows of the future. With the high cost of touring, it may someday be more feasible to present large rock festivals at various spots around the country.”
The UNUSON company concluded months after the fact in a press release that,
“The US Festival proved that a large group could assemble for three days of entertainment and community peacefully. There were fewer arrests (37) in three days of music than the average professional football game. After the Festival there was no one in the hospital and there have been no lawsuits.”
Rumors of a “repeat performance” manifested the following Memorial Day weekend as US 83, in the same location, and which I covered for the Contra Costa Times as well.
A long-promised US Festival movie finally came out in 2017, and it looks exactly how I remember it. I have yet to spot myself or Sylvia in the crowd scenes, but I’m sure we’re in there somewhere. I highly recommend it!
A few years ago, following a summer performance at Stern Grove here in SF by the English Beat, one of the few bands to play at both US Festivals, I went up to lead singer Dave Wakeling, shook his hand and told him I saw his band there.
He looked me in the eye and shouted joyfully, “We survived!”
Indeed, we survived.
Here is the story as published in the Contra Costa Times: