This was a daunting project when I attempted it earlier in another format, and the result turned out rather clumsy. It was not awful, but hard to capture the Muse when you have to worry with formatting and uploading issues. This format may promise a full expression of what I wish to capture, it may not.

What I would like to share is just a portrait of the incredible journey I was able to engage in from the late 70's through the late 90's, and a tad beyond... But the price of attending a live show of a big name act exploded so much, it was no longer viable. Besides, why drive 60 miles to pay $200 dollars to see a two hour show, when you can watch it in 3 months on blu-ray in your living room in Dolby surround, perfectly edited, and digitally mastered, for 20 bucks.

Because, Live Music is the best. And I don't mean a few folks strumming chords to recorded and lip synching to canned background tracks, I mean musicians sharing their gift with it's imperfections, to bring the emotional connection.

To give a bit of cred to the rest of the Journey, here is what fit on the scanner. Stubs side a

Interesting, a built in mandatory caption/link feature, that could be useful and possibly annoying, but I sure I will get over that. I did take the time at the time, to take notes on the ones the were no longer obvious.

Weird, no caption with this one.

I have seen some shows, this is a portion of what I had the patience to scan, and many were lost.

The Crown Jewel of that collection in my opinion is second to the right on the top image, and second from the left bottom on the second image. Sorry they got inverted, don't have the gumption to do that now.

Carlos Santana was the headliner, Some guy named Stevie Ray Vaughn (my understanding at the time beforehand) and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Oh, some guy named Jimmie Vaughn played with them.

8/21 is clearly on the ticket in image 1, 8/27/90 is clearly on Stevie's death certificate. I went from who is this guy, to who is this GOD, to he is gone in 6 days. Clearly a dramatic moment, if not traumatic. No it was traumatic, That hurt more than the assassination of John Lennon. He had a huge body of work, Stevie had just cleaned up and was hitting his prime, a true tragedy. I am blessed to have have seen that show. And what a show, Stevie played for over an hour, The T-birds played for over an hour, Carlos played for two, and then they had an all star jam session which included Los Lobos. Guitar Heaven. I have not seen a finer axe session ever.

This was far from my first rodeo, but one of the my most treasured musical memories, we shall travel in the wayback machine soon enough, but a tribute to Stevie Ray for now.