The US Festival

I have quite literally been to hundreds of concerts in the last 30 years, my first being Peter Frampton at the Forum in 1977. I was 13. Then there was Elton John, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Black Sabbath, Journey, Cheap Trick, Styx (you know, Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto), Pink Floyd and more! THEN, I went "new wave" and there was The Police and Joe Jackson and The Cure--my favorites--we often went to EACH night of the tour in OC and LA. Nearly every weekend we'd head up to Los Angeles to smaller venues to see Squeeze, X, Adam Ant, Culture Club, The Romantics...and SO MANY others!
But when I start telling 'concert stories' my trump is always Labor Day weekend 1982--"The US Festival." The lineup included The Police, Talking Heads, Oingo Boingo, The B-52s and The Ramones--all in their HEYDAY! The concert was held at the Glen Helen Park (code name for HUGE DIRT FIELD) and was sponsored by MTV and some new company called "Apple"...We left at midnight the night before and slept in my folks' Vanagon in the parking area (dirt), waking each other at sunrise to go GET IN LINE. "Festival seating" for hundreds of thousands of people meant that once they opened the gate we had to RUN UP A FREAKING HILL to the stage to get a "good spot" for the concert of the century!
Which we did. We ran up that hill and then down into the dirt-filled valley and we were within 100 feet of the enormous stage! We laid down our tiny little blanket and the four of us sat and slept and then wandered among the overwhelming amounts of people--in the 102 degree sun--while we waited for the concert to start.
There were giant water hoses spraying the crowd just to keep people alive! It was SO unmercifully hot and there was not an once of shade anywhere! Do you know what you get when you cross water, dirt and thousands of people? Giant mud puddles and a whole lot of filthy people...we were hot and sweaty and COVERED in dirt.
But we were SO happy to be there!
The concert was INCREDIBLE. I swear I can VIVIDLY remember seeing Sting and Joey Ramone, David Byrne and Danny Elfman (with Oingo Boingo in photo above!)
It was an AMAZING dream to see all those unbelievably fabulous bands at one show!
After spending more than 27 hours awake, melting in the sun, sinking in the mud and singing every word of song after song and dancing with strangers and then trying to find our car, and battling the crowd back to the highway--we STILL felt like the
LUCKIEST PEOPLE ON EARTH!
I swear, to this day, it remains one of my MOST special memories...
If you are trying to picture the whole thing, be sure to add into the fact that I was 19 years old. And 8 months pregnant. And I was still one of the first ones up at the stage.
Yep. Lucky, lucky me.