Vintage concert poster artwork...

[Joe Fields]

Back in the day, (the real day) legendary concert promoter Bill Graham embraced the creative vibe of San Francisco, and commissioned numerous artists to create colorful and inspiring posters of upcoming shows at places like the Fillmore and Winterland venues. These are but a small sampling of the hundreds of now quite valuable pieces of artwork from that era, courtesy of Wolfgang's Vault.

[some guy]

1. kinda cool

but dang, some of those are hard to read... :crazy:

Lots of good bands, at least the ones I can sort out. Hendrix, Mayall & Alberrt King woulda been a good show to see. I'd have gone but I couldn't read the dang poster, so I didn't know when it was. :cry:

:rofl:

[Joe Fields]

2. Bill Graham used to get upset with the artists over that very thing.

But the posters became so popular that he ran up against too much resistance, so he let the artists do their thing. Yeah, you really have to study the posters to figure them out. Believe me, there was never an empty seat at his venues.

[some guy]

5. lots of good music

so probably even if people couldn't figure out the advertising, they figured the music would be worth listening to, whether they knew who was going to play or not.

*Hey, maybe the MC will tell us who is coming up for the next set, man*

[KG]

3. it all made sense if you were trippin'...

[some guy]

4. or at least gave you

something to do for an hour while trippin' :)

I remember the time and the bands, but I was only in early double digits age-wise. Too young to 'get' a lot of what was going on then.

:hi:

[Kajsa]

17. Yes!

I am having the hardest time reading them, now.

No problem back then-They all made "sense".

Of course, so did dripping candle wax.

" better living through chemistry".

;-)

Fillmore West was great!

[Oeditpus Rex]

6. Useta see reasonable facsimiles of these every Sunday

in the San Francisco Chronicle's "Pink Section."



Yeah, it really was printed on pink newsprint, as the Chron's Sporting Green was on green.

Them was the days. :)

[Joe Fields]

10. That sounds like Frisco. That's one of the things that made it unique.

One of the cool things about those concerts was that most of the time, the headliner would perform two sets.

[wildhorses]

7. way cool

:hi:

[Joe Fields]

8. Hi, little lady...

:bounce:

[wildhorses]

9. hey joe~

me likey the posters:loveya:

[Joe Fields]

11. Me too. The ultimate representation of 60's counterculture art.

long time no see!:hug:

[wildhorses]

12. long time

:hug:

wonder if copies of these are available?

i would really like to have the quicksilver and the buffalo springfield:loveya:

[Joe Fields]

14. I used to have several of these. Had them for decades, but alas

they were sold at auction. Yes, you can buy originals at the Wolfgang's Vault website, but they are pricey. Say, did you happen to catch the wildhorses in the last poster?:loveya:

[wildhorses]

16. yeah -- what about that

wildhorses running free

:kick:

[some guy]

13. okay Feb 3 4 & 5

Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service - who else was on that bill?
(or what does the line under QMS and above the date say?)

:hi:

[Joe Fields]

19. It says Dino Valenti, Fri. Sat. & Sun.

and underneath it, it reads Fillmore Auditorium. The other is the time, which is 8 pm.

[some guy]

20. thanks

I just *could not* figure that one out - I think I can read all the rest of them.

It's cuz they're not poster-size, yeah that's it.

:yourock:

[darkstar]

15. Thanks for these, Joe....

One of my proudest mementos is my name on an Earth Day poster designed by Wes Wilson, one of the artists whose work I'm pretty is represented above (can't read the fine print). He moved to somewhere outside of Springfield, MO in the mid-80s when I lived there. He designed a poster for a local Earth Day concert one year. I did a solo acoustic that day, and my name is all scrunched up in swirly psychedelic print in the second tier acts near the bottom.

And believe me, I'm so not worthy of the honor. But it's kind of cool to have it hanging kinda near this replication below in my home like, you know, Jorma, Jerry and I were real tight.

[Joe Fields]

18. That is awesome. Yes, Wilson's work is represented in the

JA and Quicksilver poster above, and in the Buffalo Springfield poster. He was an awesome artist, and set the trend for Graham's poster art. You are one lucky guy.

[Drum]

21. I remember seeing these reprinted in magazines

a decade / 2 / 3 ago...nice!!

Thanks for this post. :)

[Joe Fields]

22. my pleasure.