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Just a little blurb on Rock T-Shirts in the news from the Post Gazzette

Young fans plug in to vintage rock T-shirts
Wednesday, September 21, 2005

By Dan Majors, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette
A Paul McCartney World Tour 1989/90 T-shirt, left, and a 1977 Led Zeppelin concert T-shirt.
Click photo for larger image.

The rock concert has changed over the years. It used to be about the music. Now, it’s about the experience.

It starts in the parking lot and goes on into the night, accompanied by the sale of beer, CDs, posters, lighters, glow sticks and bandanas.

And T-shirts.

T-shirts have always been the most fashionable concert souvenirs, especially when they didn’t cost the same as a tank of gas. Their popularity has created a bootleg market of counterfeit shirts hocked in the parking lots before and after shows. But these shirts, which are produced and sold illegally, tend to be of poorer quality. (Take, for example, a Genesis concert at Three Rivers Stadium some years ago, at which hustlers were selling shirts with “Pittsburg” misspelled among the tour dates on the back.)

Some people want the authentic T-shirt to show support for their favorite bands and as tangible evidence that “I was there.” Some folks are even nice enough to grab a shirt for a friend who couldn’t be there.

Ryan Dempsey, 23, of Pittsburgh, got himself a black Megadeth T-shirt when he attended last month’s show at the Chevrolet Amphitheatre at Station Square.

“It’s something to remember it by,” said Dempsey, who always buys a T-shirt when he goes to a concert. “I have seven to 10 at home, I guess.”

And when he gets tired of them, he can give them to his kid brother.

A 1985 Kiss World Tour T-shirt.
Click photo for larger image.

As far as mementos go, they beat a ticket stub. And they go so well with a pair of jeans.

Eventually, however, the concert T-shirt is relegated to the bottom of the drawer or the back of the closet — or the kid brother. Maybe the band is no longer cool and another band has taken its place in your heart. Maybe the shirt shrunk. Maybe you expanded.

You come across it one day and you smile at the memory — the old music, the old friends, your old self. But you don’t put it on again. You either wax the car with it or give it to Goodwill.

That, it turns out, is where the old concert T-shirts get a second life. Young people, who weren’t even alive when bands such as The Kinks, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were in their heyday, are wearing the shirts to school, concerts, everywhere.

Few of the classic concert Ts are being handed down from the parents. What self-respecting kid would be caught dead wearing a T-shirt that had belonged to mom or dad?

Most of the shirts are coming off the racks at vintage clothing stores.

Monica Phillips, owner of Diva’s by Monica on the South Side, would love to stock some “previously enjoyed” rock T-shirts to sell. But she doesn’t.

“They are so hard to find,” said Phillips, whose personal collection at home includes a Pink Floyd and a Led Zeppelin. “They’re very highly sought after.”

The coolest ones in this cultural phenomenon are the metal bands. But any vintage shirt can bring in a profit.

Jenn Ferris, designer and co-owner of Daisy Mae clothing, works at Kharisma Vintage Fashions on the South Side. She owns a Motley Crue and a Depeche Mode that she still wears.

“We shop all around the Tri-State area looking for stuff,” she said. “You have to go backwoods. It’s hard to find authentic vintage in the city.”

The popularity of the shirts is such that many mall stores, from J.C. Penney to the teen-friendly Hot Topic, stock reprints such as Doors T-shirts that are just like the ones worn back in the day. But these were produced by the boxload in China just a few weeks ago.

Young people buy them and wear them and get away with it. But it isn’t quite the same.

“They don’t really know what they’re getting,” Phillips said. “They just know that they’re cool.”

David Tobiczyk, vice president of marketing and development for Goodwill Industries of Pittsburgh, is familiar with vintage concert T-shirts. They’re popular items at the 23 Goodwill stores in the region that includes Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. And he has an REM T-shirt from a 1985 concert still hanging in his closet.

Tobiczyk said each of the Goodwill stores here takes in about 3,000 pieces of clothing a day, a number that prevents them from separating out T-shirts that might be of more value to customers, collectors or shop owners. “Basically,” he said, “we’re trying to quickly process the new pieces of clothing to get the ones that are in good shape out on the floor.”

Vintage clothing store owners “are all good customers,” he said, but Goodwill doesn’t set anything aside for them. T-shirts go on the $1.99 rack, whether they’re cool or not. Besides, who can say which is which?

“The value to one is not the value to another,” Tobiczyk said. “One of the magic things about shopping at Goodwill that a lot of people like is they find something that is really, really special.”

Still, you don’t have to stake out the Goodwill, waiting for someone to bring in that Nirvana shirt you wish you still had. You might be able to find it online.

A search of authentic vintage concert T-shirts being offered on eBay, the online auction site, recently showed these hot properties (and the high bids at the time): 1983 Motley Crue ($23.50); 1979 Kinks ($22.50); 1983 Def Leppard ($50); 1984 Van Halen ($90.99); 1984 Ozzy ($75); 1985 Kiss ($21.50); 1994 Beastie Boys ($4.99); 1994 Jimmy Buffett ($10.50); 1989 Bob Dylan ($20.50); 1981 Frank Sinatra ($19.99); 1982 Queen ($37); 1990 George Michael ($3.99); 1984 Duran Duran ($10.50); and 1989 Rolling Stones a la Andy Warhol ($13).

Sometimes you have to pay to wear your heart on your sleeve.

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