Dubba G’s El Paso Downtown Street Fest Memories

We're at that point in the year when, back in the day, we would have been gearing up ... or already buried in ... the KLAQ/El Paso Downtown Street Festival. How about a flashback?

KLAQ and the city of El Paso used to take over downtown El Paso for a massive party over the weekend closest to the 4th of July. My birthday being the 3rd of July always made the festivities a little more special, in fact I'd refer to the 'fest on air as "Dubba G's Birthday Extravaganza". Great times, here are 3 of my top memories ...

The first one would be the times I got birthday shout - outs from the bands and the other KLAQ jocks. The best being the night the crowd started singing happy birthday to me. It started quietly, I didn't notice at first but it grew louder and louder. I stopped my rap and sat down on the stage and listened - it was amazing. Never had 15,000 people sing to me before. Or since.

Welcome To Alice Coopers Nightmare

Alice and Theory Of A Deadman both had some memorable weather moments rocking El Chuco. The night Alice Cooper played, a typical El Paso mega thunderstorm blew in. The high honchos told us to hold the show because of all the lightning. Meanwhile Alice is pushing to get out there, not wanting to disappoint his fans.

READ MORE: El Paso's Crazy Weather Extremes

There's a true chance of death by electrocution here and the only guy not worried about it is the man most likely to fry first. The storm passed and the show did, finally, go on. The fans, myself and Alice were all soaked but that somehow made the experience even better.

Theory Of A Deadman Had A Weather Issue Too

Ironically, the title of the song that Theory Of A Deadman had just released was "Hurricane" and a mini - hurricane is what they got when they played it during soundcheck. Good timing though, since it was done pre - show, there wasn't really anybody around.

As they started to play the song a light rain fell and a strong wind formed a little whirlwind that knocked a bunch of amps and stuff over onstage. It also blew a stage support tower out of place. The crew was able to get it back where it belonged in time for the show to go on. (P.S. - Theory are back in El Paso September 15th.)

Rob Zombie

This isn't exactly a good memory but it's a vivid one. Just a  few songs into Rob Zombie's set, some crazy lady jumped the barricade around the soundboard and started yanking out cables. The band ended up experiencing something a little like this .

As amps went out and the stage went dark, the band were in WTF world, trying to figure out what happened while 15 thousand fans stared at them. In an amazing display of grace under pressure, the sound crew sorted out the rats nest of cables, got things back in order and the show went on. See some pics here.

During "Never Gonna Stop", Rob got personal with a few fans that had spots down front.