The Texxas Jam

1979: (June 9): Texxas Music Festival, Cotton Bowl, Dallas, Texas (General Admission - $15.00)

    * Boston
    * Heart
    * Van Halen
    * Sammy Hagar
    * Nazareth
    * Blue Öyster Cult
    * TKO

1979 (August 26): Cotton Bowl in Dallas, officially called "The Last Concert of the Last Weekend of the Last Summer of the Seventies", aka "Farewell To A Texas Summer"

    * Rush (Permanent Waves "warmup" tour)
    * Foghat
    * Pat Travers
    * Billy Thorpe
    * Point Blank Band
    * Little River Band

1983 (Dallas - June 18, Houston - June 19):

    * Styx (Kilroy Was Here tour)
    * Sammy Hagar
    * Triumph
    * Ted Nugent
    * Uriah Heep

Trivia: Ted Nugent and Rik Emmett joined Sammy Hagar on stage in Dallas for their version of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." Tommy Shaw recalls these shows as being some of the worst of his career. He claims to have feared for his life as his band was performing a play after some of the best hard rock bands of the day had performed.

1984 (June 10):

    * Rush (Grace Under Pressure tour)
    * .38 Special (Tour de Force tour)
    * Ozzy Osbourne (Bark at the Moon tour)
    * Bryan Adams (Cuts Like A Knife tour)
    * Gary Moore (Victims of the Future tour)

Trivia: Bryan Adam's drummer for this show was Matt Frenette of Loverboy.

1985 (August 24): Cotton Bowl in Dallas

    * Deep Purple (Perfect Strangers tour)
    * Scorpions
    * Night Ranger
    * Bon Jovi
    * Grim Reaper
    * Victory

1986 (June 19):

    * Van Halen
   * Loverboy
    * Dio
    * Krokus
    * Keel
    * Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Trivia: Leslie West joined BTO on stage to perform Mountain's "Mississippi Queen."

1987 (June 20): Cotton Bowl in Dallas

    * Boston
    * Aerosmith
    * Whitesnake
    * Poison
    * Tesla
    * Fahrenheit

Trivia: The live concert footage for the video "I Won't Forget You" was filmed at this performance. Also, Poison was joined onstage by Paul Stanley for their performance of KISS's "Strutter".

1988 (a.k.a. "The Monsters of Rock", July 3):

   * Van Halen
    * Scorpions
    * Dokken
    * Metallica
    * Kingdom Come

This was the show where Sammy Hagar lost his voice after only a couple of songs and then he promised to play a free show in Dallas. A few years later they did just that at Dallas' West End.

The Texxas Jam was the informal nickname of an annual summer arena rock concert called the Texxas World Music Festival (1978-1988). It was held at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas and in Houston, Texas at either the Astrodome or Rice Stadium on the campus of Rice University.

Artists who performed at the Texxas Jam:

1978 (July 1): Texxas Music Festival, Cotton Bowl, Dallas, Texas (General Admission - $13.00)

    * Local battle of the bands winner Blackstone
    * Walter Egan
    * Van Halen
    * Eddie Money
    * Atlanta Rhythm Section
    * Head East
    * Journey
    * Heart
    * Ted Nugent
    * Aerosmith
    * Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush

1981 (Houston Show July 18):

    * REO Speedwagon
    * Heart
    * Blue Öyster Cult
    * Foghat
    * The Rockets

Note: Savvy was originally scheduled to open but was bumped by REO Speedwagon's management (same management as The Eagles in 1980). Show lineup confirmed by Steve Jones of Savvy.

1982 (Dallas-June 12, Houston-June 13):

    * Journey
    * Santana
    * Sammy Hagar
    * Joan Jett
    * Point Blank Band

Sammy Hagar had a guitar stolen backstage at the Cotton Bowl show, it was returned later that day. However, Hagar vowed to never play it again after it had been handled by someone else and lit it on fire on stage the next day at the Houston show.