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.
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 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 Foo Fighters, we had The Ramones, we had 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
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
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.”
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