CBGB was not just a place where some major bands broke out of, much more than that it was a very comfortable club. From the start CBGB had a high quality, high power sound system, where many budding musicians got to try out their songs for the first time, in a place with great sound. CBGB was always open, 7 days a week, with 7 or more bands a night for 32 years, and aside from the few dozen that made it big, most of the bands were never known. If kids don’t have a place where bands can play when they are bad, they will never learn to be good.

Mandy is the daughter of Sire records president Seymour Stein, who, with his wife Linda, built the careers of many of the great bands that came out of CB's. Linda, above with Mandy, is such a rocker that she made her way through the crowd to the front of the stage to get a close up view of Debbie and Chris.

The Patti Smith group played a long show with two sets, first an acoustic set consisting of some of the songs they played when they first started there in 1974 and songs by Blondie and the Ramones among others . The second set was a long set of her own music, joined for a while by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.