St. Bonaventure University Bona Venture, September 19, 1980

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Mosport festival 'punks'


Joyce McLoughlin

"Heatwave at Mosport" turned out to be the perfect slogan for this year's New Wave extravaganza. Over 50,000 people attended in 90 degree heat to see the best in new music.

At 10 a.m. Saturday morning, August 23, the crowd began to file in from all over the Northeast to witness the B-52's, The Talking Heads, Elvis Costello and seven other bands perform until approximately 11 p.m.

Mosport Park in Ontario, Canada was for 13 hours a showcase for punk rockers garbed in outrageous costumes, dancing until the end of the night.

The stage show, as well as the show put on by the concert-goers themselves, is what makes punk original. Consequently a smaller crowd made it easy for everyone to view the stage and enjoy the show. Stealing the show from the musicians were the punk fans when they began to "do their stuff." Fluorescent hair, safety pins and British flags were the major symbols of a legitimate punker They danced through the crowds with their unique head-bobbing from shoulder-to-shoulder style and caught the attention of practically everyone who attended.

At mid-afternoon. the main attractions took over as Nick Lowe brought his foursome to the stage His band Rockpile, gave listeners a break from New Wave and went back to the basic Chuck Berry style which the audience seemed to enjoy. Dave Edmunds brought the crowd to its feet with many excellent guitar riffs while Lowe carried the band on bass guitar.

Lowe is famous for his production work with many New Wave groups like The Pretenders, who followed Lowe in concert The Pretenders were somewhat of a disappointment, as the band failed to generate much crowd enthusiasm.

Songs like "Space Evaders" and their hit single, "Mystery Achievement," were high points of their performance. Though it seemed as if the band was not excited about the show, the crowd voiced their displeasure when they only performed one encore.

Next it was time for the B-52's to take over. Dressed in their outrageous outfits, they amazed the crowd with a unique stageshow The lyrical content and visual displays were awesome, making up for their sub-par musicianship.

Of course they saved the best for last and the crowd went into a frenzy as they performed what many people believed to be their theme song, "Rock Lobster." The song lasted for approximately twenty minutes and literally got the crowd jumping for the next act.

The Talking Heads, considered to be the hit of the show, came on next with five new band members and a great reggae-influenced sound They performed "Psycho Killer" with the musicians from Talking Heads '77 only. Then they brought out their complete band, playing songs from their latest album Fear of Music. "I Zimbra" started the spree with "Cities" and "Life During Wartime" ending the show in excellent form.

It was a hard show to top as Elvis Costello brought out his band to play their solo North American stop in this year's tour. He was musically brilliant, but seemed to lose the audience as his show lingered.

Costello ended the show playing his most popular single "Pump It Up" as an encore and the crowd went home with much more than their $20 worth of entertainment.

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The Bona Venture, September 19, 1980


Joyce McLoughlin reports on the Heatwave Festival, Saturday, August 23, 1980, Mosport Park, Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada.

Images

1980-09-19 St. Bonaventure University Bona Venture page 12 clipping 01.jpg
Clipping.

1980-09-19 St. Bonaventure University Bona Venture page 12.jpg
Page scan.

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