It’s a grainy, black-and-white image, but the fervor is palpable as two zealous young rockers salute their idols at the inaugural 1985 Rock in Rio in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“The reason I was yelling like that is because the whole band of Iron Maiden came out to greet the fans,” Calex Castro recalls of the photo, which ran on the front page of O Globo newspaper. The festival, headlined by Queen, George Benson, Rod Stewart, AC/DC and Yes, was unlike anything the developing country had ever seen.

“Rock in Rio was one of the first and only things from Brazil that was first-world-like,” says Castro, who was 13 at the time. “You absolutely marveled at the infrastructure. It’s as if someone from Disney had a spaceship and parked the spaceship in Brazil.”

A Las Vegan by way of Brazil, Castro attended the first Rock in Rio in 1985, worked the second festival in 1991 and is set to attend for a third time on the Strip. For him, the then-10-day festival was life-changing. Prior to that, he had never dreamt of seeing his heavy-metal favorites in person; there just wasn’t a rock scene. The festival put Brazil on the music map. “It really makes people’s lives better, in so many ways,” he says. “When you look into the love they put into the event, it’s special, it’s different. It’s not Coachella; it’s about the love. ... You’re going to go to watch Metallica, and you’re going to end up finding the love of your life, or finding Brazilian music, or some other band. It’s an experience that goes way beyond the headliners.”