There can be only one truly great festival a lifetime and it's the US Festival!

In the summer of 1982, my brother and I flew to LA to spend a week with our grandparents. We spent most of the week swimming or reading, with one trip to a museum and another to play video games (a big highlight). On Friday we checked the Times' arts section for something to do. There was a big ad for a concert that looked good to us teen/near-teen boys, but our grandparents weren't interested in escorting us to some all-day rock event. Instead we persuaded them to take us to see Pink Floyd The Wall, which they couldn't have hated more (they thought it was a totalitarian movie and in an excruciating conversation after, they demanded that we explain how we could have liked it if we were not fascist sympathizers). On the whole, I wonder whether we would have all been happier had we gone to ...

The US Festival, Apple, Inc.'s corporate-tech-friendly Woodstock for the 80's. The lineup we missed that day:

Gang of Four
The Ramones
The English Beat
Oingo Boingo
The B-52's
Talking Heads
The Police

Best new wave lineup ever? If you were there that day or any other day, please share your memories. Thanks!

By the way, the US Festival website has some good info & youtube footage.

(“Runnin’ With The Devil” ends)
Well, hello, Glen Helen Regional Park! Look at all the people here tonight! Oh, man! I’ve got to make an announcement right here. Can you hear me out there? (screams from crowd) Hey, man, don’t be squirting water at me! I’m gonna fuck your girlfriend, pal! I just wanted to say that as of right now, this time tonight, more people have been arrested today than the entire weekend last year, man! You a rowdy bunch of motherfuckers! (extensive screaming, 48-second pause) Who likes rock’n’roll? Yeah! Yeah! I’ll tell ya, this is the time of the evening when the band gets to have a drink, right here. Ooooohhh-ohhh. (Roth’s midget assistant comes out and hands him a bottle of whiskey.) Is everybody having a good time so far right here? (screams, whistles and cheers, 40-second pause) I want to take this time to say that this is real whiskey here. The only people who put iced tea in Jack Daniels bottles is The Clash, baby!
(segue into “Jamie’s Crying”)

(actually the '83 one but who cares)

1983 totally counts! As far as I'm concerned I blame that movie for me missing EVERY day of the festival, and I just want to hear some I-was-there stories.

I wasn't at that one, but I did go to Toronto's Heatwave festival on 8-23-80:

Teenage Head
Holly and the Italians
Rockpile featuring Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe
The Rumour (without Graham Parker)
B-52's
Talking Heads
The Pretenders
Elvis Costello and the Attractions
The Kings

The Clash were scheduled but canceled.

There's a tape floating around of the Elvis set, were he comes out and says "'Ello we're the Clash."

I think this might have been the Talking Heads' first show with the bigger band. My brother tells me that during the (world premier of?) "Once In A Lifetime," I commented to him that it was a really great song.

Great doc on the US Festival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQHf4B_CLr4

Lineups for both US and Heatwave are so amazing, I would have loved to be at both.

I did attend M-80 in Minneapolis in 1979, smaller scale but incredible nonetheless. I wish my memories were clearer.

https://www.tptoriginals.org/when-no-wave-hit-mid-america-m-80-a-new-no-now-wave-festival/