The Rolling Stones 1969 Livermore, CA Altamont Festival Speedway Green Concert Poster....

Description

GREEN WITH ENVY THAT ALTAMONT CAME IN ANOTHER COLOR

The Rolling Stones 1969 Livermore, CA Altamont Festival Speedway Green Concert Poster. An original December 1969 concert poster for the Rolling Stones playing at the ill-fated Altamont Festival which took place in Livermore, California on Saturday, December 6, 1969. This fell right after the Stones had concluded their big fall '69 tour of North America - their first trek through the States in 2 ½ long years.

We're extremely pleased that David Swartz has pulled the green version out of his world's-greatest concert poster collection and allowing us to auction it for him in this Spring sale. It's definitely scarcer than the orange version we've auctioned before.

The festival, the chaos, the legacy, the tragedy... every rock fan worth their salt knows what went down that day, especially reinforced by the Gimme Shelter movie which came out afterwards. And then reinforced again by the expanded DVD of that movie, filled with commentary by all the players and frame-by-frame analysis of the death that occurred in front of the stage during the Stones' set. (If you happen to subscribe to HBO/Max, Gimme Shelter is available for viewing there.)

But where our focus lies today is the poster associated with the event... the seldom-seen but oft-discussed poster we have up for sale (again) in this auction. The central image was obviously knocked off from Bill Graham's BG-201 and BG-202 posters, which used a recent publicity photo of the band by Ron Raffaelli, featuring new member Mick Taylor (center). All the poster has is about a dozen words: "Rolling Stones, Free Concert, Dick Carter's Altamont Speedway, Livermore, December 6, 1969." Livermore is located about 45 miles east of San Francisco.

This was the Let It Bleed bad-boy Stones whose latest hit, "Honky Tonk Women," had been #1 for a month - the biggest hit of their career. And according to Joel Whitburn's Billboard chart books, Let It Bleed first entered the magazine's Top LP's chart in the issue dated December 6, 1969... the exact date on this poster.

So the gravitas of the Rolling Stones at this moment cannot be overstated. With the Beatles and Dylan done with touring and Elvis slowly sliding into Vegas, this was the Stones rightfully staking their claim as the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band. The world was theirs, and the stage was set... so what could go wrong if the band put on a free show to thank their fans?

But there was very limited time to get the word out. The final location of the event was decided on just a few short days in advance. That left precious little time to design and print up an advertising poster. Radio and newspapers would probably have to be the primary means for getting the word out, right? However...

Then this appears. Nobody knows who was behind the quick design, printing and distribution of this poster. There has never been a person or persons who stepped forward and said either "I did it" or "I know who did." All we had was good circumstantial evidence of folks getting one at Altamont and then selling it to a collector decades later, but then quickly fading from the picture.

But then, two years ago, Heritage corralled what's called a "primary source" in every way possible - David & Maddie Sadofski - and had great fun letting them tell us their story. And their tale even answers the mystery of whether it was a rogue entrepreneur out to make a quick buck, or an 'official' source who made the poster. We know now it wasn't the former, because the Sadofskis witnessed someone posting the poster the day of the show. General consensus seems to be slowly building that it was Dick Carter himself who made it... after all, he was a relatively unknown quantity (no Bill Graham), but yet his name appears prominently on the poster. A golden opportunity for a little self-promotion?

Regardless, it's a poster that represents the end of an era, by a band that is still packing stadiums to this day, to rave reviews. The poster measures 12 1/4" x 18 3/4" and grades to unrestored Near Mint condition. From the David Swartz Concert Poster Collection. COA from Heritage Auctions.

More Information: Poster once had a horizontal crease across the top portion, which has been professionally pressed out by Chameleon Restoration (but absolutely nothing but pressing, no resto). It crossed the poster right under "Rolling" and lightly detectable in the vertical green sky. In the lower left corner there is a printer's flaw in the white margin going down from the corner, so that's not damage.

Also worth mentioning but certainly falling into the category of "printer's anomaly" is the faint impression of another, larger poster on the verso, likely the result of the Altamont being laid down on another poster before its ink was dry. You can barely make out some words like "Open to the public." There was never any question this poster was a rush job printed on the cheap, and here is yet another piece of evidence to substantiate that.


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