Sierra Mountain Times

There was nothing quite like it! An incredible weekend of rock and roll and airs shows, and the Calaveras Fairgrounds was ground zero! For 14 years, the annual Mountain Aire concerts rocked Angels Camp – and the entire Mother Lode! Superstar acts such as Journey, ZZ Top, the Cars, Jimmy Buffett, the Grateful Dead, Jackson Browne and many, many more (plus the air shows) helped establish Mountain Aire as a legendary series of summer concerts! Dale Batchelor of Sonora remembers! Now a retired recording engineer and maintenance electrician, Dale has seen a lot of fascinating things having lived in the Mother Lode (Tuolumne County) for 50 years; but nothing quite like the Mountain Aire concerts! “I went to the concerts, and stayed in the campgrounds, where the gas station is right now! That used to be a huge, empty field!” And, during a Mountain Aire weekend, “it was one big party!” Dale recalls. “Linda Rondstat played at Mountain Aire! It was a great time! It was wonderful! And you didn’t even have to go to the concerts to get wrapped up in the feel of it! You could just be anywhere in the area! It was like a West Coast ‘Woodstock’! The energy was flying through the air! Between acts, Dale remembers, “They would actually have airplanes doing loop-de-loops and bi-planes doing all kinds of weird stuff! There was a comedy, too: “A ‘drunk’ walked out onto the runway and staggered around a plane that was running–and the pilot wasn’t there!” Dale remembers. “Then the ‘drunk’ got in the plane and took off! He flew from right to left – and disappeared behind the canyon! And you think ‘Oh, my God!’ And then, he would come out the other side, straight up and do stunts!! It was an act! That was all part of Mountain Aire!” Wouldn’t it be great is Mountain Aire somehow could return? “Of course! Of course! How could we not want that?!” Dale exclaimed. ”Calaveras Fairgrounds is a great venue! It’s a natural amphitheatre!” A Mountain Aire revival? Someday!