The best week of the year was upon us, and I picked up the tarnished silver picture frame that rested on my bedside table. I can’t even begin to fathom that fifty years have come and gone since my girls and I sat there so innocently in the Milwaukee sun. With a sigh, I grabbed my keys and prepared to drop my grandkids off at Summerfest. However, my eyes were glued to the faded, grainy picture, and suddenly, my sixty-two-year-old body felt lighter, and blackness crept in from the corners of my eyes. When my vision recovered, an abrasive light blinded me right as I heard, “Smile, girls!”

My eyes flew open. Looking down, my hands bore no wrinkles; my fingernails were garnished with a bubblegum pink. I reached up to my hair, silky strands welcomed me. I blinked. And blinked again.

“Are you okay, Lynda?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. My best friend, Pam, stared at me, her eyebrows knitted together in concern. Except Pam was fifty years younger! I whipped my head around. Lois mirrored Pam’s face; her fair features scrunched up. I looked around me, a realization dawning on me. It was 1973 again, I was thirteen, and I was at Summerfest.

Everyone thought Mayor Maier was crazy when he suggested bringing a piece of Germany’s Oktoberfest to our little city. The lakefront of Milwaukee doesn’t quite match Munich’s vast size! However, he wanted something German and American, a unique festival just for us. And thus Summerfest was born, although originally called “Juli Spass”, or “Summer Fun” in German. A nine-day festival filled with polka, jazz, folk traditions, film, and celebrities was cooked up by the Milwaukee World Festival Committee, and we were just itching to go. When the festival opened in July 1968, my parents told me I wasn’t old enough! I mean come on! I felt I was a perfectly mature-looking eight-year-old. The thirty-five events hosted that year were all so different, all around the city, ranging from a car race and air show to music and theater acts. In the next couple years, in desperate need of some cold hard cash, the committee decided to consolidate the event to one location: the former NIKE missile base along the lake. This location would be home to the world’s largest music festival.

If there’s one thing Wisconsin loves, it’s beer. Oh man, the taste of a cold beer on a summer night tasted good, but it tasted great when it was brewed in our city and enjoyed in front of sparkling Lake Michigan. I snuck a sip from my mom’s Miller Lite while she talked to an old friend she ran into. I glanced up at the stage in front of me, a big “Miller” sign claiming the land. By 1973, big breweries such Miller, Pabst, and Schlitz signed on as major sponsors for the festival. Finally, with a beautiful location and beer flowing, Summerfest brought in a profit of $160,000 with general admission tickets being sold for $1.50. The festival will continue!

I closed my eyes, feeling the late July sun warm my cheeks. Summerfest was the type of occasion we planned our outfits for, throwing on our favorite bell bottom jeans and begging our moms to buy us halter tops. They didn’t fall for it. Instead, we were stuck with long sleeve shirts; the breeze coming off the lake always brought small goosebumps to my arms. Around me, the crowd was packed. People from all over Milwaukee and the surrounding suburbs gathered to hear all different types of music. Currently, we were all waiting for Blood, Sweat, and Tears to come out to entertain us with their jazz rock.

Although my stomach rumbled, I knew there wouldn’t be food vendors at Summerfest for two years. It was weird already knowing what was going to happen! I hadn’t gotten used to the whole time travel thing yet. I remembered that Summerfest welcomed local restaurants to open food vendors at the festival in 1975. There would soon be more than just beer, we would also have pretzels, ice cream, cheese curds, and an assortment of deep-fried food. Dang, I had to get my mind off food. It was only making me hungrier!

Now deep in reminiscing, I thought about the years all these people were soon to experience. When the new entertainment director Bob Babisch was hired in 1977, Summerfest took off. He booked major shows, which I distinctly remember dancing to in ways my mother would probably label as sinful and a crime to womanhood. Willie Nelson, Journey, Dolly Parton, and Grateful Dead filled my ears and mind that year in the prime age of seventeen. My outfit was no longer the denim-colored long-sleeved shirt; Pam, Lois and I instead wore colorful tube tops, slitted skirts, and chunky heels to top it off. It was the age of the disco after all! Our real clothes that we left the house in were stuffed in a backpack, along with our well-mannered selves. Summerfest was the time to flirt with guys to get them to buy you a beer, hold hands with your girls as you trudged through thick crowds to get to the front, and hide from parents that were sure to scold your trendy fashion. How could we not be inspired?! Bo Black was the new executive director in 1983, and she was the coolest. A former Playboy cover girl and NFL cheerleader, Bo Black became Milwaukee’s “girl boss”— she tirelessly fundraised and promoted Summerfest. She became the face of the festival for two decades.

Bo Black brought growing pains for Summerfest, since it just couldn’t hold the major headliners that were being invited to perform. A new stage was desperately needed, a much bigger one than the main stage I was now sitting at. A small bubble of excitement rose in my chest as I thought about the venue that would open in 1987, able to seat 23,000 people. There was a certain homey-feeling in a crowd of your city, all gathered to see a single person. With the lake shining behind it, the Marcus Amphitheater hosted the Beach Boys, The Bangles, Jimmy Buffet, John Denver, Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, and so many more.

Summerfest brought the city into one place in the summertime. It was for everyone and by everyone— giving a hangout spot to all types of people. I watched it grow as I grew, every year impatiently waiting for that week in July that I could run free. Maybe it was the booming sounds from various venues that filled my ears as I walked down the center path of the grounds, or the way I couldn't leave without a beer-soaked shirt, or maybe even the call of seagulls and smell of something frying that enthralled me, but I knew Summerfest was a piece of Milwaukee that would never leave my heart.

Summerfest hit a single-day attendance record in 1998, as 138,854 people walked through the gates. Guinness Book of World Records named Summerfest as the World’s Largest Music Festival the following year. All because a regular Milwaukee man wanted a place to go, drink beer, and hangout in the summertime.

My friends suddenly grabbed my hands, shaking me. “Lynda, come on! We’re leaving… Did you even hear any of the concert? It was totally groovy!”

As we walked out of the Summerfest gates, I thought about my grandkids experiencing this same place fifty years later. As teenagers, they would throw on jean shorts and a much too skimpy tank top, chug cheap vodka with their friends on the way there— crinkling up water bottles and shoving them into their pants so they could continue to booze inside the grounds. They would get their fair share of late nights, embarrassingly drunk nights, and nights you thought you found the love of your life. It was just the Summerfest effect. They’d wake up hungover and hungry for another night. They would never know the name Bo Black or sit at a tiny stage to listen to Polka music. And that was okay. Because although Summerfest has changed so much from those original years, it holds true in its purpose and mission: curating an experience so unique in a small Midwest city you couldn’t help but love it.

I felt the blackness creeping into my vision again as I was yanked further and further away from the lakefront grounds. I closed my eyes one more time, grateful for this little trip back.

And there I was once again, sixty-two years old and still holding the silver frame, just standing in my room. I put down the picture, gripped my keys with my once again wrinkled hands, and walked out the door.

References

OnMilwaukee. (2020, July 25). The first 50 years of Summerfest. Retrieved from https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/summerfest50