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Ha! Well they had to put Van Halen's stage together and that took awhile and you have peeps who were out in the sun and dirt all day and a bit substance abused. I remember the crowd screaming bullshit. We got some Apple Computer tech geek intermission UFO junk and that probably really pissed off the rocker crowd. Ha! Ha! Eddie played fine. It was Roth who was shit faced to the point he was not up to full speed. But about a third of the way into the show he got better. Then of course he showed his ass to everyone for the encore. I did think the guy was off his nuts for doing that but the chicks loved it.
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No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar! -
No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!Comment
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Didn't stay for the encore but I heard it from the parking lot. One of my friends and myself stuck together the entire concert until we got separated by crowd movement right before VH played. We agreed to meet at the showers if that happened. I didn't want to wait until the entire crowd started heading that way so I started in that direction before the encore.Beware of DogComment
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It was Angel Dust for a while back in the mid 80s. I took a guy there to get some smoke in early 85. He handed me a really skinny joint claiming it was just weed but it smelled like a pickle. It was Angel Dust on mint leaves. I made the mother fucker walk back home to Riverside for trying to get me to smoke that shit.Beware of DogComment
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Is it a rock n roll night tonight?
Eat Us And Smile
Cenk For America 2024!!
Justice Democrats
"If the American people had ever known the truth about what we (the BCE) have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - Poppy Bush, 1992Comment
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over twenty years back my ex dragged me to a Kiss "farewell" concert. They gave you a program and other shit. Should have kept it (not the Ex).Chainsaw MuthuafuckaComment
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From the footage I've seen, that's exactly what looked like: a massive, open piece of land that was crammed with 300k people and little in the way of on-site facilities. It looked hot as shit, temperature-wise, with plenty of shots of site staff literally hosing the crowd down with firehoses in order to keep them cool. Which...I mean, one would think a decade + on from the original Woodstock, the US Fest organizers would have organized it a little better...and, if memory recalls, there was already an US Fest the previous year in 1982.
It was reported the same sort of organizational problems reared their heads at the 1994 and 1999 Woodstocks. The difference being that the original Woodstock ended up being essentially free for attendees after hundreds of thousands of people beyond what was planned for showed up, where the 1990s Woodstocks SHOULD have planned for that many to show up, but didn't. I mean, the 1999 one was portrayed as a big free-for-all riot due to lack of adequate security, yet the tickets for it were over a hundred bucks from what I remember. People being gouged for bottled water, lack of portable toilet facilities, assholes in the crowd (and with a gathering that large, there's always gonna be more than a few assholes, fucked up on booze and drugs, with no other ambition other than to run riot). I remember reading about that at the time and wondering how it could be that the organizers had learned nothing from the 1970 and 1994 Woodstocks, and thinking (by Woodstock 1999 I was nearly 30 years old) that I don't need to pay any amount of money to deal with that kind of bullshit.Scramby eggs and bacon.Comment
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Other side of the coin being that organizing and pulling a festival like that off...just the sheer size of it and the amount of components...can't really sit here and say any of it would be an easy task by any means.
You look at the films of the original Woodstock and Altamont, you can't help but laugh when you see footage of the organizers trying to deal with all the issues coming up, because it's so clear that the size and scope of the events escalated beyond anything they could control and they end up just winging it and holding on for the ride...half-useless/half-stoned Trippy Dippy Hippie dudes that they were.Scramby eggs and bacon.Comment
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After the US83 show Glen Hellen was turned into a permanent amphitheater. It opened in 93. When they did that they added seating and kept the area between the seats and the lawn open as a walkway from side to side. The capacity now is 65,000 making it a lot mellower concert venue.
As crowded as it was it during the US it was still possible to make your way to the bathrooms and back although there was a few assholes in the crowd threatening others who stepped on their blankets or accidently brushed up against them. I didn't see any fights but I'm sure there was a few. Exiting the venue the was probably the hardest thing to deal with but I didn't drive so I slept during that. I don't know how long it took but since we were heading north after we got on the freeway it was clear sailing the rest of the way home. Normally it would take about an hour to get home from there but the sun was coming up when I got dropped off.
The Cal Jam concerts were much worse. I didn't make the first one but considering how many people left their cars on the freeway and walked the rest of the way I'd assume getting to and away from Ontario Motor Speedway was a total nightmare for those who didn't. I attended Cal Jam II. It was easy enough to get in since we got there two days before the day of the show but getting home was kind of a bitch. We were so high we stopped at my grandmother's house on the way home and spent the night there. I didn't get any sleep from Thursday till early Sunday morning. Didn't eat either. That evening I to piss so bad I just whipped it out where I was standing. The bathrooms were too far away and almost impossible to get too. I made sure I didn't piss on anybody else. I could have pissed my pants and nobody would have noticed. We were filthy dirty from the trip inside. The line would stop from time to time. People would set their stuff down thinking they'd have time to pick it back up but we got tangled in blankets and sleeping bags numerous times on the way in. Broken Styrofoam coolers dotted the path. We drank some green Kool-Aid from a jug that was being passed around right before we got inside. I'm pretty sure it had LSD in it but we hit some joints being passed around that may or may not have been laced with PCP. I still had a great time but my best friend got brain damage from all the drugs we ingested. He was never the same after that.Beware of DogComment
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The estimated crowd at Cal Jam II is 350,000. The day VH played during US83 the crowd was estimated to be 300,00 but there were people as far away as you could see without binoculars at Cal Jam II. Ontario Motor Speedway was a superspeedway. 2 1/2 miles around. Much bigger than the part of Glen Hellen where the US festivals took place. Look at the aerial photos. There were a lot more people at Cal Jam II.
Here's Cal Jam II
Cal Jam II.jpg
Here's US 83
US 83.jpgLast edited by cadaverdog; 02-13-2020, 03:03 PM.Beware of DogComment
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