Before there was Coachella and Bonnaroo or even Lollapalooza there was the US Festival, funded by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak who was just as much of a character as the bands he would overpay to perform in the sweltering heat of San Bernardino over Memorial Day Weekend in 1983.
After already losing millions in 1982 with his first US Festival (headlined by The Police, Talking Heads, The Ramones, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, and the Grateful Dead), Woz decided to double down in ’83.
But this time, if he was going to fail, it wouldn’t be because he cut corners.
Woz was rich but it was still the early days of Apple. In 1983 only a few million Americans owned personal computers, many of which were used solely as glorified typewriters. And the market was divided up roughly by the nerdy Tandy computers sold at Radio Shack, IBM’s powerful home PCs, and the sleek Apple IIs that would pave the way for the first Macs.
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