Collector offers big bucks for local concert posters of ’60s
By Jed Gottlieb
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
www.bostonherald.comAndrew Hawley deals in nostalgia. Even if it’s nostalgia that Hawley isn’t technically nostalgic for.
Too young to have seen Bob Dylan’s 1965 show at the long-gone, Back Bay Theatre on Mass. Ave.,the 43-year-old Connecticut native has been using the Herald’s classified ad section to try to track down a poster promoting the show.
“WANTED: original Oct. 1965 Back Bay Theatre, Boston Concert Poster,” reads the ad. Then the kicker: “Will pay $3,000 Cash!”
Is the poster worth three grand? Maybe, but that’s not how Hawley arrived at the price.
“I live in southern California now and I knew I had to put a pretty hefty number on it,” he said by phone. “All this stuff is subjective. If I found that thing at a flea market or an antique store maybe it would cost $300.
“But I just figured that if I’m going to spend the money to put the ad in the paper, I might as well go for the gusto. I don’t want the scenario to come up where I offer five hundred bucks and some guy doesn’t call me because the number’s too small.”
One guy not too young to remember the Back Bay Theatre is Peter Wolf, who performed there as lead singer of the J. Geils Band and attended the Dylan show and party afterward.
“The Back Bay Theatre was an alternative to the Tea Party,” Wolf said. “I also remember a Cream show I went to there.”
While Hawley does trade in memorabilia, the poster he seeks is for his personal collection. He’s not interested in Dylan posters from the ’70s or classic Dylan vinyl, even though that’s what people mostly call him about after seeing the ad. Hawley, you might say, enjoys chasing a few white whales.
“For me it’s original ’63 to ’66 Dylan and Rolling Stones concert posters,” he said. “I love the simplicity of them. Seeing something like (tickets for) $1.75 including tax really pinpoints the time in history.”
Another elusive catch he has fished for with the Herald classifieds is a poster for the Rolling Stones’ ’66 gig at the recently demolished Manning Bowl in Lynn, where Mick Jagger and his mates played on a night marked by rain, riots and arrests.
“This was a legendary show,” said Hawley. “I have a picture of the Stones poster, so I know it exists. But because of the rain, who knows how many survived. Most of these were just posted on telephone poles.”
For Hawley, the hunt is half the fun - even if he knows he may never close in on his prey. Hawley is not absolutely sure that posters for Dylan’s Back Bay Theatre show were ever made.
“It would certainly stand to reason they made posters for the Back Bay show,” he said, “because I have posters from a couple nights before and couple nights after and they used the same artwork.”
But he won’t have proof positive until he has one in his hands.
“I found five copies of a Bob Dylan poster from a Richmond, Virginia show,” Hawley said. “He played the next night in Norfolk, two hours down the coast, and I’ve never seen a poster from that night.”
Got any leads? Call Hawley at 310-346-1965. There might just be $3,000 in it for you.
Old concert posters like this one might be worth a lot of money.
This Bob Dylan in Boston poster is from the year before his Back Bay Theatre performance.
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