The Doors were a few months away from stardom in March 1967 when they played five sparsely attended shows at a small club in San Francisco called the Matrix. These uninhibited performances would have been fleeting if not for Peter Abram, who co-owned the pizza parlor turned nightclub with Jefferson Airplane founder Marty Balin. An avid recordist, Abram taped concerts at the Matrix regularly, and his recordings of the Doors, made between March 7-11,...

Madison Square Garden, the world-famous New York City arena, was a home away from home for the Grateful Dead, a reliable sanctuary where the band would ultimately play 52 shows, a record at the time. The venue's fine acoustics combined with the fans' unbridled energy consistently brought out the best in the Dead. At the band's 2015 induction ceremony into Madison Square Garden's Walk Of Fame, Bobby Weir said "This place was both horrifying and titillating...