1985 Montreux Golden Rose Rock Festival TV special

There were a few of these specials syndicated by TEN- The Entertainment Network in the 80s- this same month (July, sweeps month) there had been a similarly-titled "Pop Festival" special but I didn't tape that one since I didn't like most of the music featured in that, didn't like all of this either but there were at least a few I liked. I don't know what their purpose was, but it's obvious that all the bands are lip-syncing to the standard versions of their songs. ("Easy Lover" with Kenny Loggins standing in for Phil Collins being a possible exception, he sings over the recording where you can still hear Phil.) You'd think the talent would've been insulted, and the audience seems to be there more for dancing than seeing them in person. The commercials make this a decent time capsule however which is why I taped and kept it. Only recently did I find out the theme music was ABC's "Beauty Stab," it certainly sounds cheesy enough to be a production library track. This was about a month after we had lost The Quake, so I was cut off from good music for a few years. This aired on channel 31 in Sacramento when it was KRBK, and also one of the first specials in stereo, this was a second airing later at night after it aired in prime time a few days prior. This was taped on a JVC model which was one of the first with a stereo TV tuner although annoyingly it lacked linear stereo playback. You can hear their annoying "synthesized stereo" kick in during the mono commercials and a few times being late to switch it off coming back into the show. This was about when broadcast TV was at its technical peak though- stereo, bad 16mm film chains were rarer, and no screen clutter. This station and others would even show current movies uncensored. I was annoyed though that it seemed as soon as TV got stereo, music videos started disappearing aside from NBC's Friday Night Videos which was on too late. KRBK had a nightly music video show but cancelled it around this time. (We didn't have cable, and when we briefly tried it in 1989 MTV was still in mono!) And remember, kids, only assholes watermark their videos!