Artifact

Not long before Winterland was to be demolished in 1979, (and condominiums went up on the site.) I went on a mission with two friends.. One of the them was my good pal, Aiko Jim. The venue had been a San Francisco landmark for many decades, long before becoming home to many historic rock concerts. On the front of the building were several of these fancy, framed boxes. They typically held posters of upcoming shows. The hastily-written sign you see was an exception to the norm. This sign was made for the last concert that ever ocurred there, on December 31st, 1978. It was a last-ditch effort (by BGP) to defray those who did not have tickets. They still showed-up. I'll bet some of the scalpers did well that night.

Close to a year after the final concert, we heard that the demolition was mere days away. We decided that we needed something to show for our years spent behind those music-saturated walls. We waited for darkness. In Jim's nondescript Chevy Nova, we rolled up in front of the beloved, doomed venue. We grabbed the crowbar in Jim's trunk, and proceeded to pry loose one of the old boxes. Into the trunk of the car it went, and we sped off into the night. (Laughing like mad, of course.)

It has lived the last almost thirty years with Jim. It weighs too much to hang on any typical wall. The locked glass door has never been opened. We have always wondered whether the sign was written on the back of a concert poster of some sort. (?) To us silly deadheads, this is a sacred artifact, from a hallowed place in musical history. I asked Jim if he'd take a picture of it when we visited last weekend. He did. Is it vandalism, when they're going to bulldoze it anyway?