What we’re talking about is the evolutionary trail that leads to a date so innocuous as Boston playing in Atlantic City on July 18. and the date’s historical roots which can be traced back to the early beginnings of concert itinerary history.

These dates didn’t spring up overnight. Instead, the schedules for bands such as The Darkness and Jet have their roots in the technological marvels of days gone by. From the stooped-shouldered cavemen chiseling pictographs in caves foretelling a future world filled with dates for David Bowie and Fishbone, to teams of erect-standing booking agents planning the cross-country trek of Jessica Simpson, one can trace the path of intellectual growth from point A to point B. A timeline so exquisite, so elegant, that it can only be expressed as “July 4, New Orleans, UNO Lakefront Arena, leading one to ask; if that isn’t perfection, than what is?

Make no mistake, there is a lot to be learned from concert history, and how show schedules, such as the itineraries for Jimmy Buffett and Pat Benatar, are the just the latest results of an evolutionary marvel not even hinted at in the writings of Charles Darwin. Of course, Mr. Darwin was more concerned with the turtles off the western coast of South America than what would happen if Madonna scheduled six shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Nevertheless, his vision, limited by only what he could see, completely missed the overall big picture, and with it, the world-spanning itineraries for Sting, Metallica and Britney Spears.

So while your browsing the tour schedules on this site, keep in mind that every schedule, from Aerosmith to ZZ Top, owes its precision and flawlessness to those who have come before us. As nature and environment surely established mammalian dominance over this planet, the never-ending primal urge to seek better routings, faster tour buses, and even faster groupies, has molded, formed, and sculptured the current state of civilization that we know today. In other words, concert schedules form the epoxy in which our world is bound, without which, we’d be nothing but nomadic tribes of man, clueless as to how the world really works, and totally unknowing of the joys that can be expressed as simply as John Mayer playing July 2nd in Milwaukee.

So go forth! Browse the dates for Liz Phair, check out the schedules for Gloria Estefan and Hank III. And while you’re looking at the thousands upon thousands of dates posted on this Web site, take a moment to reflect upon the past efforts of histories greatest minds, and how those efforts resulted in the tour itineraries you see today. From Da Vinci coding secret minstrel schedules in his paintings, from the great Chinese leader who declared that summers are for music, thus establishing the legendary Genghis Khancert Summer Series, to Thomas Edison’s groundbreaking work with electricity that lead to the founding of Ticketmaster, concert routings are the supreme result of hard work, long hours of study, and even longer hours of genetic experimentation to give us the live-music infrastructure that is civilization in the 21st century.

Coming up later this week – How the fall of the Roman Empire can be traced back to a 10 percent increase in ticket service charges for all second century gladiatorial matches, which in turn sparked a revolution resulting in the two-day approach to this year’s “Lollapalooza”. That’s later this week on Pollstar.com!