Held on Memorial Day weekend in May of 1983, the second installment of the massive US Festival in California drew close to 700,000 music fans and featured a wide variety of acts that catered to just about every popular music taste of the time. Sponsored and financed by Apple's Steve Wozniack, the US Festival was looked at by many as the 1980s version of Woodstock.
As the popular music trends of that time period were mostly new wave, synth pop, and heavy metal, the roster of artists who performed at the festival were indicative of these trends. The Day 1 line-up included such popular acts as INXS, Men at Work, The Divinyls, The Clash, and Stray Cats. With two clips each, Men at Work and the Stray Cats are given the most coverage here on the DVD. Over to Day 2, the metal acts came out to play, with numerous songs from Judas Priest, Triumph, and Scorpions. The Priest played out in the heat of the day, and despite the 'lighter' looking leather & chains clad outfits, it was apparent that they were melting with the heat of the mid-day sun. Canada's Triumph tore through a few of their more popular tracks ("Lay It On the Line" is especially strong here), and the Scorpions were as energetic as always. The third day featured a lively mix of rock, pop, and new wave, with a young U2 giving it all, and the Fleetwood Mac star Stevie Nicks really shining on her solo hits "Stand Back" and "Outside the Rain".
Original MTV VJ Mark Goodman gives some commentary throughout the DVD as he looks back at the event, and in addition to the band footage there are lots of shots of the crowd as they are enjoying the music and sunshine. Due to rights issues, footage of other notable acts who played at the festival, such as Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen, David Bowie, The Pretenders, and Joe Walsh, is missing here, which might be a major bummer to some, and for some odd reason there is a Triumph clip added to Day 3, when they actually played on the second day. Regardless, if you were there, here is a cool video document of your experience, and for those that missed out, here's a snippet of what went down. Too bad festivals like this don't happen anymore here in the US.
Track Listing
Day 1-New Wave Day
1) The Boy in Town-Divinyls
2) Jeanette - The English Beat
3) The One Thing- INXS
4) Rock This Town-Stray Cats
5) Double Talkin' Baby-Stray Cats
6) Who Can It Be Now-Men At Work
7) It's a Mistake-Men at Work
8) Should I Stay or Should I Go-The Clash
Day 2-Heavy Metal Day
9) Breakin' the Law-Judas Priest
10) You Got Another Thing Comin'- Judas Priest
11) Lay It On the Line-Triumph
12) Fight the Good Fight-Triumph
13) A World of Fantasy-Triumph
14) The Zoo-Scorpions
15) Can't Get Enough-Scorpions
Day 3-Rock Day
16) Sex I'm A-Berlin
17) Find Another Fool-Quarterflash
18) Sunday Bloody Sunday-U2
19) Electric Co. - U2
20) Words-Missing Person
21) Magic Power-Triumph
22) Stand Back-Stevie Nicks
23) Outside the Rain-Stevie Nicks
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