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It's been 20 years since DC's biggest music festival went quiet

The HFStival boasted some of the biggest names in rock and was the must-have
ticket for the summer.

Matt Gregory, Ruth Morton, Larry Sindass, Matt Pusatory (WUSA9), Tom Kopania

[c51c0dec-f]
An alternative rock festival held locally from the 1990's through 2006.

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●

  • [79]

    The Concert Event of the Year

  • [80]

    The Early Years

    The Beginning of the Festival

  • [81]

    Becoming a Destination

    Growing The Fest

  • [82]

    "I'm Living My Rock and Roll Dream"

    RFK Welcomes A Hometown Hero

  • [83]

    Parking Lot Proving Grounds

    Local Acts Get Their Start

  • [84]

    Radio Silence

    The End of HFStival

●
[86] Facebook
Published: 7:29 AM EST February 5, 2024
Updated: 1:09 PM EST February 6, 2024

WASHINGTON

The Concert Event of the Year:

Outside, the abandoned Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg, Jeff Lund, stared past
the fence, past the boarded-up windows, and into the past.

“I used to buy tickets to the [87]HFStival here,” he smiled. “There was like a
shanty town of teenagers with tents and sleeping bags camped out all night just
to be in line for tickets."

“You had the whole school year to get excited about it,” he said with memories
swimming around him.

It was the concert event of the year in the DMV. A summer show that brought the
world’s biggest music acts to D.C.

“We had the [88]Foo Fighters, we had [89]The Ramones, we had [90]Tony Bennett,”
former WHFS music director and DJ Bob Waugh said.

Waugh is one of the men behind the HFStival. For years, he spearheaded the
logistics of it. He convinced hundreds of artists to make D.C. their summer
music destination.

“In radio you work in a bubble, so the idea of going out and doing something
that was a live event was an opportunity we all savored,” he said.

The Early Years: The Beginning of the Festival

In the early 1990s Bob started work at the popular DMV rock station 99.1 WHFS.
He had followed WHFS program director Robert Benjamin to the station. 

When the two arrived, WHFS already had a summer concert that went on in
Northern Virginia.

“It was something we were interested in growing,” Waugh said. “That started
when we moved it to the Equestrian Center in Upper Marlboro, Maryland in 1992.”

Waugh credits Benjamin with coming up with changing the name of the summer
concert to The HFStival. After the success of the 1992 show, both men felt it
was time to try a bigger venue.

Waugh said someone suggested they take the show to RFK Stadium. The problem
would be selling out the sports stadium. Waugh said they knew they needed a
headliner for the show. They got one in INXS.

In 1993, WHFS hosted its first HFStival at RFK Stadium. The list of artists had
grown, but with INXS anchoring the show, it sold out.

Becoming a Destination: Growing The Fest

Waugh said from there, it was off to the races. He and Benjamin built contacts
across the music industry. Those contacts created relationships. Over time they
were able to convince bands to make a yearly stop at RFK.

“It got to a point where bands were planning their summer tours around the
HFStival,” Waugh said. “They knew they wanted to be in D.C. around Memorial
Day.”

“Remember when Green Day set their drum kit on fire?” former WHFS DJ Gina Crash
mused from a Towson recording studio.

I’ve gotten her and another WHFS alumnus, Rob Timm, together for the interview.

Crash and Timm sat together for a few minutes and the stories started to flow.
They picked up like the 1990s had never ended.

“That was the year we put everybody up at the Watergate and Adam Duritz of
Counting Crows was upset that there was a grand piano in the suite that we got
for him,” Timm laughed. He demanded the piano be removed.”

Both had a front-row seat to the madness of the summer concert.

“I just remember doing interviews backstage, like talking to Scott Weiland from
Stone Temple Pilots and trying to prop him up on the couch because he was
falling,” Crash smiled.

"I'm Living My Rock and Roll Dream": RFK Welcomes A Hometown Hero

Every summer the DMV got a days-long taste of the music that shaped the 1990s.
No genre was safe from rock to hip-hop. In fact, for one night in 1995, even
jazz singer Tony Bennett graced the RFK stage.

 “In 1996, Courtney Love and Tony Bennett shared a dressing room because we had
run out of space backstage and they were separated by just a curtain,” Waugh
said.

“Courtney Love being Courtney Love, decided it might be fun to open that
curtain and lift her shirt and flash Tony Bennett, which I happened to witness
in real time. Tony Bennett was not impressed. I think he'd seen it all at that
point.”

The HFStival grew through the 90s. The crowds increased every year and
eventually it gave native son, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters, their first
stadium show welcome.

“I’m living my rock and roll dream,” Grohl shouted to the crowd in 1997. “I
grew up in Springfield, Virginia!”

“It was very much a homecoming and I think Dave had the time of his life,” Rob
Timm said. “In fact, I know that he did.”

Parking Lot Proving Grounds: Local Acts Get Their Start

But the festival was more than the inside of the stadium. In the parking lots,
different political and social causes set up shop. Vendors sold the wares of
the decade. The radio station set up smaller stages for lesser known and local
bands. 

Those stages turned into proving grounds for future artists.

In the mid-'90s, Annapolis native Jimi Haha and his band Jimmie’s Chicken Shack
tore it up on the local stage. But when Jimi looked back at RFK he said
something he didn’t expect.

“All the ramps in the side of the stadium were packed with people watching us
play, it was intense,” he laughed. “I guess Art Alexakis of Everclear had told
everyone to check us out.

Later that year, the band would sign a major label record deal. The next year,
they played inside RFK as their album took off.

That was the other story of the HFStival, how it propelled local bands into the
national spotlight. The local bands in turn would pull others up behind them.

“We were huge Jimmie’s Chicken Shack fans,” Jeff Lund said. “This is really
nerdy, but they had this record label ‘Fowl Records’ and at the HFStival they
started a Fowl Records stage. That’s where I saw Good Charlotte for the first
time.”

That’s right. Waldorf, Mayland’s own Good Charlotte played on the local stage
Jimi Haha sponsored after he made it big. Small music world. The brothers
behind Good Charlotte, Benji and Joel Madden also had their songs played for
the first time over WHFS airwaves. Within a few years the band was touring the
world and playing on MTV.

But it all started in a parking lot at RFK stadium.

From 1993 to 2004 the HFStivals roared on. Each summer more fans came and more
bands signed on. But in 2005 the radio station underwent a cataclysmic change.

Radio Silence: The End of HFStival

“I had a a lot of concerns about what was happening to the station as I was
leaving,” Bob Waugh said.

In January of 2005, those fears became realized.

“I remember starting my car and it was set to HFS and there was just Latin
music playing,” Jeff Lund said.

“I was like maybe there is something wrong?”

It was a sudden and unannounced format change. In one day, the station went
from alternative rock to Latin music 99.1 El Zol. Not long after- HFStivals
stopped as well.

“They tried, but it was a mere shadow of its former self. A festival in name
only at that point,” Waugh said.

In the 20 years since RFK hosted the last HFStival. The DJs have moved on and
the fans have moved on. Soon RFK will be completely torn down.

Through the fence of the abandoned RFK stadium, Jimi Haha dreams of a new
future.

“Yeah, I get nostalgic, but tearing a building down doesn’t tear down the
memories or the experiences there,” he smiled. “Hopefully they’ll build
something badass.”

Haha broke into a smile and let out his signature chuckle.

“Then we can do more fun things in that venue.”

RELATED: [91]This Virginia music teacher just won a Grammy

RELATED: [92]List of nominees and winners for the 66th Grammy Awards

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