The week of the 1983 U.S. Festival was one of the best we ever had. The whole machine was firing on all cylinders; we were riding a successful record and a justified conquest of America. We had achieved a status that I couldn’t have even dreamed of when we were hustling up gigs and playing around the clubs on Long Island just a few years earlier. We had set out to make a living by playing rockabilly music; my biggest goal was to have an apartment somewhere and to wear blue suede shoes to work and not have a hassle. Now, the mannequins in the front window of Macy’s had pompadours and were wearing bowling shirts. This was real rock star stuff, and I loved it.
The U.S. Festival was, at the time, the biggest rock show ever. It took place over the Memorial Day weekend in May 1983 at Glen Helen Regional Park near Devore, San Bernardino, California, in an open-field venue with the world’s biggest temporary stage. The event cost $12 million to put on and was organized and paid for by Steve Wozniak, one of the founders of Apple and a major music fan. The U.S. Festival, pronounced like the pronoun, was meant to be a reaction to what Steve thought about the 1970s, which he felt was the “me” generation. He wanted the shows to be more community oriented. One of the ideas behind the festival was to combine rock music and technology on a grand scale. The whole weekend drew 670,000 people, and when we were onstage at sundown on Saturday, May 28, there were over 300,000 people watching the show. All of these fun facts are 100 percent known to be true; I looked it up on Wikipedia because I couldn’t remember any of the actual hard facts about that legendary gig. I do remember very clearly a lot of the other personal details and other behind-the-scenes stuff from the day that we were on, though.
I’m pretty sure that we were starting or already on some type of tour, maybe the West Coast leg of one. I was living in Stone Canyon, and the other guys were staying at the Westwood Marquis on Westwood Boulevard, the west-side version of the Sunset Marquis where a lot of other bands stayed, too. A car picked me up, stopped at the hotel to meet the guys, and then headed to the airport. The next thing I knew, we were in a helicopter flying over LA. I know it’s been said before, but the first time you are in a helicopter, it really does remind you of a Vietnam-type scene out of Apocalypse Now. I thought about the ending scene of the Stones’ film Gimme Shelter. It was all a bit surreal. After what seemed like a long trip, where no one really spoke but exchanged those “can you believe we’re here?” looks, we were in a chopper over a giant throng of people that seemed to stretch for miles. There was a line of cars and traffic for as far as we could see. It was another one of those moments when I was too excited to be afraid.
We touched down amid a cloud of dust and were taken to a nice makeshift backstage—functional but not luxurious. Britt and Nicholai had driven and somehow were already there. I think the current girlfriends of the other guys were there, too. We all were very friendly. Britt, Nicholai, and I all had matching white-and-black cowboy suits with smiley pockets and velvet belt loops made by Glenn Palmer. I completed the whole modern-meets-classic Grand Ole Opry outfit with sterling silver, engraved boot caps, collar points, and belt buckle with a white Kentucky colonel tie. It really was an amazing suit. I’ve always believed that going to work in an ensemble like that is at least half the fun.
I walked around the backstage, talked to everybody, and stood at the side of the stage and watched a few of the other groups that were on before us. I was always the hangout guy in my band and really dug the camaraderie with other bands and being into the whole moment. I watched the Divinyls, which featured Chrissy Amphlett—friend and future wife of true pal Charley Drayton—on vocals and the excellent guitarist Mark McEntee. They had the big hit and great pop song “I Touch Myself.” Mark and his wife, fashionista suprema Melanie Greensmith, founder of Wheels and Dollbaby clothing line and shops, are still friends today, and I see them whenever I’m in Australia or they’re in LA.
I also watched INXS. Michael Hutchence was my good friend. He was a real front man and had a great voice, too. He really was that lanky lead singer who would swan into a room, trip over a chair, and make it look cool. We had the falling-down part in common. One of their first USA tours was as the opening act of a Cats tour, and we became and stayed friendly. Our paths crossed again when Phantom, Rocker & Slick returned the favor and were the opening act on an INXS tour after they had really cracked America, including a two-night stand at the Hollywood Palladium that has played such a big role in my rock-and-roll storytelling. The usual hijinks occurred when a couple of true party guys got together. We had a few good times together when he lived in Paris and the Cats’ tour stopped there with a night off before the show. It was in the later part of the 1980s, and I hadn’t crashed out of partying yet.
I had a Swedish relative, Blaise Ruetersward, whom I was very close with at that time. He was Britt’s brother’s wife’s brother. He was a big male model in Paris, and he shared a flat with a bunch of beautiful people, including a model girlfriend of Michael’s. Blaise is a fantastic guy who turned up and lived with us for almost a year at Doheny Drive while he was nursing a recent heartbreak delivered by an American model in San Diego. I helped him get over it by drinking a thousand bottles of Corona beer with him and letting him beat me a thousand games in a row at Ping-Pong in the summer of 1986. At last check, he was thriving as a fashion photographer in Paris.
Anyhow, I seem to remember something in a nightclub where Michael stood up on and fell off a table in a crowded place without spilling one drop of his drink. The next night at the Cats’ gig, he turned up wearing his silk pajamas and bathrobe. We cemented a real bond a few years later in London. Michael had publicly started a tabloid-fueled affair complete with custody issues with Paula Yates, the estranged wife of Live Aid founder Bob Geldof. Bob and Paula’s kids went to the same prep school in Battersea that TJ went to from 1994 to 1998.
I think Sir Bob is an awesome guy and really truly did something great and important for the human race under the banner of rock and roll. He’s a fellow Irishman, too. He came to see the Cats play, and I saw the Boomtown Rats on their first USA tour when we were still kids. He was part of the gang at Dingwalls in the early days of my fondest memories of London in the early 1980s. I wish we had been on that Live Aid show. It was through his example that I became involved with African famine and debt-relief charitable causes. I can’t say how much I respect the guy and what he’s done. I bumped into him in the Kings Road right after his first trip to Africa and intently listened to his description of the horror he’d seen. I had met Paula when she was a journalist for Record Mirror and also when the Cats appeared on The Tube, a pop TV program she cohosted with Jools Holland. I liked everybody.
So it was a little uncomfortable when I would go to the school to pick up TJ and both Bob and Michael would turn up to pick up Bob’s kids. There was hostility and bad vibes between them, and although I wasn’t all that close, I happened to be there and to know and be friendly with both of them. A few times, I cooled Michael out and we walked around the school’s gravel driveway, away from the tabloid photographers who were camped out there. The drummer guy with a slight talent for trying to make everybody get along came into play again.
In 1997, Michael was in LA making a solo record. I was already seven years sober by then. I went to visit him in the studio a couple of times; he was in pretty bad shape the last night I saw him. He did a few songs at the Viper Room. I heard about and was shocked by what happened to him just a couple of days later. The rest of the sad story is easy enough to look up.
My girlfriend at that time was Claudia Cummings, a former Alabama beauty queen. She was gorgeous and talented, too. It was one of the few times when I’ve ever seen a girl and just walked straight up to her cold without introduction and told her I would like to get to know her better. The scene was the old Hollywood Athletic Club, and Claudia was the attractive spokesmodel assistant on a billiards-themed game show. She racked the balls and smiled at the camera. My old buddy Tom Salter was one of the owners of the club and had invited me over to watch the pilot and be a face in the crowd for the TV show. Claudia was also a background singer in Jimmy Buffett’s band, and I used to go to the shows. His crowd and band thought I was the punk rocker from Mars. The audience was the stoned, drunk, and higher-paid professional meathead types with their ties around their heads, giving each other frat boy high fives every two minutes. Meanwhile, I was sober, the squarest guy in the room who had a babysitter watching TJ back at the ranch on Doheny Drive. One night at a gig in Orange County, they all had to stop, stare, and comment about my quite ordinary blue suede shoes. Despite that, I have positive memories about that time.
But back to 1983, when that day at the U.S. Festival belonged to the Stray Cats. Looking back on some press clippings and reviews of the show confirms this. Time magazine gave a favorable review to everyone and the gig as a whole and singled out the Cats’ performance as the day’s best. I dug the early sets and wasn’t as nervous as I would be now. I was caught up in the moment and had total confidence in our band. Everything clicked for us on that set. I think that we were always the best live band on any bill, but that day stands out because of the strength of the lineup. These were all world-class acts. If you look at the day’s bill now, with the Divinyls, INXS, the English Beat, Flock of Seagulls, Men at Work, and the Clash, it becomes clear, though we didn’t really know it at the time, that the Stray Cats were also representing the USA in our own backyard. We had already played a lot of big shows but were very confident that particular day, as we had a hit in the USA and were household names at the moment. The timing of the day worked in our favor, too. We strutted onstage, me carrying a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, to a thunderous applause from an estimated three hundred thousand people in the daylight. During the show, the sun went down and the huge lighting rig was turned on for the first time. Seeing the film now, I am struck by how cool our little setup was. We had this huge stage around us and had, by then, learned how to work it. The core of our setup, the tiny drum kit and two amps, looked very classy and retro-revolutionary in the days of big drum kits, keyboard rigs, and amplifier stacks. We didn’t have to waste time convincing this crowd. We had a double platinum album under our belts. I think we opened with “Rumble in Brighton” and did “Runaway Boys” in the set. The audience sang all the words on “Stray Cat Strut,” and the call and response on “Rock This Town” was the biggest noise from an audience I’ve ever experienced. The footage of the gig was recently on TV, and the Cats’ performance really holds up; the look and the music are timeless. As the show went on and it got dark outside, the show had highs and lows to coincide with the change of atmosphere. Especially when it is very hot and crowded, you cannot overwork the crowd too early, but you need to keep the intensity level up and keep them focused and interested during the whole show. I see a perfectly played and paced show from three guys all under twenty-five. After having not seen it in a long time, I was impressed with the onstage maturity and, as always, quality of the playing. This was a wild show that ended with me jumping off the bass drum as Lee held and pounded the double bass over his head and Brian threw his prized Gretsch in the air and caught it on the downbeat as I hit the last cymbal crash. All the while, we were under control. It was wild abandonment, but it wasn’t frantic. We knew where we were at all times and were very comfortable up there. We had done it—this was the peak of the mountain we had told everyone we were going to climb. We had brought rockabilly music and style all the way back and beyond anywhere it had been before.
After this show, it was a perfect time for basking; it wasn’t the day for splitting right after the show. My band had just done what would be the show-stealing set; I had my glamorous wife by my side and half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s left. My best pal for the day was Eddie Van Halen, who was playing the next day and had come early to hang out and party at the festival. We nipped from my bottle and chased it with tall cans of eternally cosmopolitan Schlitz malt liquor. We’d hang out once in a while over the years to come. He’s one of the best musicians and coolest guys in the biz. We have always had a good connection. We took some classic backstage pictures together that appeared in a few magazines in the day and still pop up sometimes online. I look pretty tweaked; I guess I didn’t want to miss anything.
The Clash was definitely one of the best bands around then. I had seen them play a number of times, including three nights in a row in 1981. They were doing a run at the grand old Lyceum Ballroom on the Strand, London, WC1. I turned up at the stage door and was welcomed by Big Ray, their security guard. I stood at the side of the stage, loved the gig, and went back the next night for three nights running. They always had a cool conceptual part to their shows. These featured a graffiti artist on a ladder, armed with cans of spray paint in crossed bandoliers and wearing a gas mask, who did a huge mural behind the band as they played. By the end of the show, there was a one-of-a-kind backdrop. I remember going into the dressing room right after the show and seeing Mick Jones sitting and eating his dinner off a plate on his lap while still all sweaty wearing his stage clothes. He was and is a supercool rock-and-roll guy whom I see when he comes to LA. I’ve rehearsed, played, and made a video at his studio / groovy hangout place in Acton, London, W2.
Nicky “Topper” Headon was the drummer in the band at that time and was on their best records and gigs. He played a dozen classic drum licks on London Calling alone, and I’ve studied his playing. He was my genuine drummer buddy, and we hung out, talked about drums, and partied a bit. I was lucky in that I never got into the dark side of drugs like he and a couple of other buddies from that time did. We bought the same pink suits from Lloyd Johnson and wore them when he sat in with the Cats at their legendary 1980 New Year’s Eve show at the Venue, Victoria, London, SW1. I saw him a couple of years ago; he’s doing okay. I’m happy to have had some quality time with him.
Joe Strummer was at a few of the early Cats shows and really helped the cause when he said some truly nice things about us in one of the big weekly rock papers. His word was respected, and it went a long way when he told the NME that we weren’t a hype. That was one of the worst things a band could be called at that time; it suggested a lack of substance. Our rapid rise and seemingly overnight success had caused a little jealousy, and the word hype was floated around in an attempt to hurt us. Joe batted that down in an interview. He didn’t have to do that, and I’ll always be grateful to him for it.
The Cats had done our own run at the Lyceum at the end of the first English tour. We also filmed the video with Dave Edmunds for the song “The Race Is On,” recorded during the making of the first Cats record at Eden Studios, Chiswick, London, W4. We did it in one or two takes. This version of the George Jones classic was a top-forty hit in England and features a perfect rhythm track from the Cats and two of my favorite guitar solos, first one by Brian and then one from Dave.
The Clash had some problems on the day of the U.S. Festival. Topper hadn’t been doing too well and didn’t make the trip with them. There was a replacement drummer, and he did the best he could. I think the guys were all fighting, and it famously was the last gig that Mick Jones ever played with his own band. After a set by Men at Work that was good but left the Cats’ set unchallenged, I was leaning on some road cases and noticed some kerfuffle behind the stage. The roadies from the Clash, having heard how much the band was being paid for the performance that day, were going on strike and refusing to move their equipment onto the stage and set it up. They were laying down their demands to the flabbergasted manager.
That’s the dichotomy to punk rock band / road crew politics, the “we’re all in it together” versus “worker’s rights against the boss” argument. Certain punk rockers had preached about poverty, and when they found themselves successful with a little money, they were embarrassed and tried to hide it. That’s a very hard thing to pull off; it always shows through in some way. I never thought there was anything wrong with success. Unless you give it all away, there’s no way to hang on to the original ethic. I’ve never known anyone who really did it that way. The Clash road crew were that certain breed of professional English roadies in the 1980s who had nicknames and thought they were rock stars, too. From where I was standing, it looked like they were promised more money and started setting up the stage.
Just when the manager thought he was safe, Joe came up to him with a new problem. As part of the technology theme behind this show, the organizer had arranged for a few minutes of the show to be simulcast to the USSR using some type of satellite technology. Through a Soviet/USA agreement, coupled with the wizardry of Apple, a certain weather or military satellite passed over the concert site and would be taken over for five minutes and used to beam the gig to the whole of Russia. The only catch to this experiment was that it had to happen at an exact time. Whoever happened to be onstage at the time of the satellite passing was the band that would be shown on Russian TV. That day, it happened to be Men at Work, and I suppose that the Russians who tuned in thought it was cool for five minutes to see any band from a big concert in the USA. I’m not sure if the Clash had been promised that slot and the timing of the show prevented it, but when Joe found out he wasn’t going to be on Russian TV, he went ballistic. I was still leaning on a few cases, taking nips from my bottle while keeping an eye and ear on what was going on. He was screaming at the manager to get the satellites back and wasn’t having it when he was told that to do that would be impossible. A few of the technical people from the festival were brought in to try to explain it. It wouldn’t have mattered who the band was; once that moment passed, that was that. I guess there must have been more stuff going on in their dressing room, because they looked a bit out of sync and distracted onstage that night.
I, however, enjoyed the rest of the night. We all watched from the side of the stage and walked around the grounds a little. I drove home with Britt and Nicholai and stayed in my own bed. It was truly a special, magical twenty-four hours in my life and career.
The next day was another day on the road for us. We had a couple of other big outdoor shows in California as the opening act for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. These were big shows too but not quite the magnitude of the U.S. Festival. We were taking a helicopter again; we were old pros at it by now. A car picked me up; we stopped at the hotel to pick up the others and went to the airport. I got out and went into the lobby. I saw Joe sitting there by himself among a bunch of luggage. He said that they hadn’t had so much fun the night before. I told him he should hang around for a few days and goof off in LA. I said we’d be back the next day and we could hang out. He told me that he had to get back to London “like my ass was on fire.” I asked him why, and he told me, “To vote.” There was a national election the next day in England, and he wanted to cast his vote against Thatcher. That cat really walked the walk on this one. He was flying all the way back to London from LA to cast a vote in an election that would result in a 99 percent victory for the bad guys, but he went anyway, to have his voice heard. That’s dedication.
The next few days, I’m sure, were good times. The whole week of the U.S. Festival was good times. I do wish someone had offered me stock in Apple instead of the money we were paid, which I’ve definitely blown by now.