You can burn a show, but you can't burn the experience of being there. - John Mayer, 2001

Concert posters dominate the collection of art, photographs and otherwise visual pieces in my personal collection. Nearly six years of memories, marked (most often in the essential black Sharpie ink) with dates, locations, age restrictions and ticket or cover charges.

The collection provides an eclectic mix, tied together by one theme: all from shows I attended*. There are pieces commissioned by musician or venue, posters that once hung on lamppost or bulletin boards and, in one case, a poster I personally hung on door after door on my college campus to promote a show I'd organized.

Two of them were signed by the musician or bands they promote, but those are early submissions, from before the time I decided I'd rather not solicit a signature.

I made the decision to focus on my experiences because I enjoy the association each conjures. Don't get me wrong - if a vintage Doors poster promoting a show at the Fillmore came my way, I'd be happy to rethink the collection's parameters. But since the odds of that are painfully nonexistent, I'll stick with what I know.

As pieces accumulated over time, and as I made the transition from residence hall masking tape to clean lines and frames, I began to purchase oversized poster frames in which I could create collages. Tickets, photographs and mementos were carefully arranged and assembled. Three of the frames were hung on the largest wall in my bedroom. A fourth waits for me to find a proper place for it. Pieces for a fifth are ready for assembly.

I enjoy noting how an artist conceptualizes a particular style of music or personality of performer. The way little details on a relatively generic piece come to specify an musician's style.

I have a number of Howie Day posters - the broody singer-songwriter never looks at the camera, and all but one are black and white shots. Speechwriters LLC, one of the quirkiest bands I've seen, likened a show with The Alternate Routes to the pairing of coffee and doughnuts, dinner and a movie. An Averi poster got the time of the show wrong, which was fitting. Rufus Wainwright lay spread out on the ground in full Lancelot armored regalia, a nod to his then-recent album release and his extravagant taste.

After I began collecting, I began appreciating. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is currently offering a special exhibit on rock art, known as "Light My Fire: Rock Posters from the Summer of Love." I made the trip shortly after the exhibit opened and found myself standing rapt before 60s era posters, many of which shifted in moving black lights. Victor Moscoso? Amazing.

When I happen to find myself at a record store or art shop, anywhere that has rock posters for sale, I flip through the racks, studying the pieces.

Which is a long-winded way to explain how I found myself at a Newbury Comics this weekend, drooling over a Belle and Sebastian poster that I would not buy, but certainly enjoyed. I flipped to the next poster and grinned.

Ray LaMontagne.

I thought to the Paradise, packed with bodies that created sauna temperatures despite the fans near the stage and the January chill outside. Lights blue and purple, drenching LaMontagne's profile with color as he unleashed a molasses-and-whiskey voice. Watching a musician battle painfull shyness as he tried to share his work with a rapt audience.

Just seeing his name on a poster took me back to the show and the five minutes of awe-inspired silence that accompanied our walk out of the venue and down the street.

I studied the poster. Stock cardboard, silkscreened with a green box and LaMontagne's name in simple white. The design included several streaks of paint, evoking the thought of wanting to hurry to get the poster finished and up for display before LaMontagne changed his mind about the show.

I lifted the piece to take it all in, noting that it was signed and numbered by the artist. And in the lower left corner, the date and location.

January 15, 2005. Paradise Rock Club. Boston.

The poster is now ready and waiting for Frame Five.

*Rules and themes, of course, have their exceptions. There is one poster for a show I did not attend: a Howie Day poster for a show in Chicago. I bought the poster on eBay, justifying the purchase with the knowledge that there were many poster-less HD shows I attended and the name of the theater is a nickname of mine. Totally works.