Meet Me Tonight at Liberty Hall

In 1974, a young muscian from New Jersey traveled to play a show in a small music venue in the South. He subsequently wrote a lyric immortalizing the venue:

"Hey Frank, won't you pack your bags
And meet me tonight down at Liberty Hall."

The song was "This Hard Land." The city: Houston. And the young muscian was none other than The Boss, Bruce Springsteen.

“Now Playing Houston: The Liberty Hall Poster Show” will display the letterpress-printed show posters used to publicize these events, produced by Marshall Press on Lyons Avenue. Due to the growth of offset printing and computer-generated composition, these posters may represent one of the last great examples of this tradition of printing, in which wood and metal types were set by hand to create show cards. Even the tickets for the concerts were letterpress printed and numbered at a small Montrose print shop.

In March of 1971, a live music venue called Liberty Hall opened on Houston’s Chenevert Street. With a capacity of around 450, Liberty Hall was dedicated to the promotion of young and dynamic musicians from a wide range of genres, from rock to country, blues to punk. From The Velvet Underground in 1971 to The Ramones in 1977, musicians who are now acknowledged as giants visited Houston and played Liberty Hall.

The Liberty Hall ephemera for this show has come from the collections of three former Liberty Hall staffers: Gerald “Scooter” Ebel, the doorman and greeter; Richard “Ace” Brooks, lighting director; and Michael Condray, general manager.

The Museum of Printing History closes at 5:00 pm, so hurry over today before you miss this great Poster Show!
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Liberty Hall Poster Show
today, June 5th (exhibit closes today @ 5:00 pm)
Museum of Printing History | 1324 West Clay Street
FREE!