Heatwave

Heatwave was a rock festival held on August 23, 1980 at Mosport Park north of Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada. The slogans used to promote the show were variously the "Punk Woodstock", the "New Wave Woodstock", or "The 1980s Big Beat Rock and Roll Party". The festival was noteworthy because of the importance of the headliner bands that played and the timing in the evolution of new wave music, and the size of the crowd. History The festival was noteworthy because of the importance of the headliner bands that played and the timing in the evolution of new wave music, and from the size of the crowd. Tickets were $20 ($25 at the gate). 85,000 people attended but at 5 pm Dan Aykroyd, in character as Elwood Blues, during a live radio interview from backstage with friend and festival promoter John Brower, asked Brower if he could invite everyone listening to come out and be on his guest list. Brower immediately agreed and within 90 minutes another 15,000 people poured into the park swelling the crowd to almost 100,000 just as Talking Heads took the stage as the sun set. The crowd inched forward to accommodate the "guests" and a sense of wonder swept over everyone as no one other than Brower and Aykroyd and the radio audience was aware of the last minute free invitation. Scandal plagued the event with accusations tossed back and forth between the backers and park management, the latter claiming to have thrown away all the ticket stubs as "no one told them to keep them". The event reportedly lost a million dollars. Despite the fact that no rights agreements were signed, the entire concert was recorded professionally. The tapes surfaced sometime later that year and were secured by Brower after being turned over by the studio whose recording truck had been on location to record Teenage Head, the band. In the mid 1990s the tapes were handed over to Canadian independent record executive Jan Haust by Brower to ensure their professional restoration and safe keeping. 102 of those tracks, by the five most famous of the bands, were acquired by Wolfgangs, which also holds the rights to Bill "Wolfgang" Graham's archive; by 2017 they were posted on its website. A video recording of a portion of the set played by The Kings has also been released. At the time of the festival, a new wave/punk festival seemed a novel idea to many, especially as many of these bands typically played at night, in clubs—not outdoors in the hot summer sunlight.