I'd been by Wolfgang's Vault (www.WolfgangsVault.com) a time or two to look at the mesmerizing displays of the iconic art and artifacts on view there. It's probably one of the coolest online museums in existence.
I'm not sure that "museum" is what they call it but the name fits in all its meanings; most especially as "a seat or shrine of the Muses". If there ever was such a shrine for pop muses of the late 20th century, Bill Graham -- ne. Wolfgang -- made it, ran it, promoted it and recruited the very muses themselves. Now his personal archives form the massive and wonderful core of Wolfgang's Vault -- a museum for the 21st century.
The first that I heard of Wolfgang's Vault was as a means for presenting and preserving the print artifacts that Mr. Graham had saved in the archives of his music promotion businesses. It turns out though that in these collections are also stored recordings of concerts by all of the famous and important rock and pop artists of the late 20th century, plus a few cross overs from jazz and country music too.
Now something that just amazes me is that these wonderful concert tapes have been digitized and added to the Vault on its website. This is a whole different kind of generosity and magic that makes this collection available. You can find your way into from links at Wolfgang's Vault or by going directly to http://concerts.WolfgangsVault.com.
I guess that I'm cynical about such things but I never would have imagined that such a wonderful collection would be made available for free. What a beautiful thing this collection is and what a wonderful thing to just put it out there for free.
There are several ways to approach the collection. On the front page you'll see listings for featured performances and a listing of the most popular concerts and a list of the most recently added shows.
The featured concerts will have some connections to current references, like birthdays or anniversaries of a show or something like that. The most popular shows are the ones played most frequently by visitors. The most recently added list has, to me, an awe inspiring implication: they are still adding the the collection of playable concerts! As I write this there are 1948 -- almost two thousand! -- playable entries in the collection!
The collection, per se, can also be approached directly through a list of artists -- both as bands and as individual performers -- including members of bands. There is also a listing of all concerts that the vistor can sort by a thoughtful list of criteria; including date, venue, listener ratings and even by the length of the performance.
The collection also includes interviews with performers and others of interest from the era and even a few hundred items that can be downloaded as MP3s. Not all of these are free, but, wow, that's cool. What a place!
The concert recordings are not all old and not all are from the Bill Graham era. In fact the available shows range from 11 minutes of the very first Bill Graham produced concert in San Francisco -- the Jefferson Airplane concert at the Calliope Warehouse on November 6, 1965 -- to (currently most recent) Ra-Ra Riot concert recorded September 9, 2008. FREE to listen to in the site's built in player.
Amazing! Wonderful! Generous.
Beautiful.
Other features: the list goes on and on. Online "radio" that plays track after track selected from the concert stash. (Nicely sequenced too.) Personal playlists -- that you can share with friends via email and/or with other folks on the site. Ratings and comments and cross-references.
Look up, say, Eric Clapton and find on the notes page links to other bands and artists that he has played with.
Amazing opportunities to study style and history. Look up Jimi Hendrix, for example. You'll find four concert sets recorded in a single engagement. Each song is a jeweled cup briming with nuance and variation. What a blast, man!
The slug on the Concert Vault website says, "Where Live Music Lives". Right on, man; right on.
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