Backstage at the "US" Festival

[djcraig]

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ICON Television Music, UNUSON Corporation and Plum Moving Media announce the making of the definitive 1982 US Festival feature length documentary.

“This film is the only authorized and sanctioned documentary of the 1982 US Festival”, according to Carlos Harvey, CFO, UNUSON.

The release of the documentary will coincide with the 30th anniversary of the event on Labor Day, September 3rd, 2012.


Plenty of bickering and backbiting behind the scenes at the subsequent 1983 US Festival:

“The festival was completely booked,” Fey recalls, “and Van Halen had a favored-nation clause in their contract that said no one could get more than them – and they were getting $1 million. Then Steve came to me and said, ‘God, Barry, I really love David Bowie.’ I say, ‘Steve, there’s no room. Let’s put this to bed.’ And he says, ‘Well, I really do love David … could you try? It is my money and my festival.’”

So Fey called Bowie, who was then touring Europe a month after the release of his blockbuster album Let’s Dance. He would return that August for two sold-out shows at Angel Stadium.

“David tells me: ‘We’ll have to interrupt our tour and charter a 747 to bring our equipment and get it right back again.’ So I went to Steve: ‘David’s gonna cost you a million and a half, but it’s gonna cost you an extra half a million for Van Halen.’ He just shrugged his shoulders: ‘So?’ The addition of Bowie ultimately cost $2 million.”

That didn’t sit well with the Clash, already grappling with the conflict of maintaining their punk ethos while picking up a $500,000 paycheck at their commercial peak, courtesy of Combat Rock hits like “Rock the Casbah” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” For a week before the festival and throughout the event itself – right up to the moment before they went on – the confrontational Brits kept demanding one press conference after another to spout vitriol, particularly toward Van Halen, else they wouldn’t perform.

“It was just such an angry gig for them,” Bliesener says. “(Joe) 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.

“So when the Clash came off … the stage announcer gets 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.”

“They were bitching about money,” Fey says of the Clash, “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.” Two days later, the Pretenders covered Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want)” as a retort to the bickering and freewheeling spending.

As with all aspects of the US Festival – the security force, the loaded tech expo, the lineup of guest speakers (ranging from Ray Bradbury to Bianca Jagger), even the stage itself, which now resides at Fantasyland Theatre in Disneyland – Wozniak “paid top dollar for everything,” Fey says. Before he headed back to Apple to develop their next wave of computers, he admitted to losing $10 million on the second fest.

“The most expensive backstage pass in history,” Fey calls it.

Wozniak told reporters on Memorial Day, five days before a poorly attended country addendum starring Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Alabama, that he wouldn’t back another one.

But Fey remembers him taking the financial hit in stride: “I said, ‘Steve I don’t want to tell you how much you’ve lost.’ He says, ‘Well, I can only do about 40 more of these.’”

More: http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment ... cades.html



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