Grateful Dead 1968 Portland, OR "Notice!" Concert Poster Graded 6.5 (AOR-3.104). ...

Description

Grateful Dead 1968 Portland, OR "Notice!" Concert Poster Graded 6.5 (AOR-3.104). An original first-printing concert poster advertising two of San Francisco's finest, the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service, on a "Tour of the Great Pacific Northwest" using terrifically original artwork. This poster advertised a show at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon on Friday and Saturday nights, February 2 & 3, 1968.

Designed by George Hunter of the Charlatans, these posters were cleverly made to look like old-west "Wanted!" signs. To achieve that effect, they were designed to appear folded up, burnt and torn like they had been ripped off a telephone pole and run over by a stagecoach. It's all in the ink printed, however, not in the paper itself. It was an ingenious approach, and a shame it was used for such a short period of time (two weeks) in such a low-population part of the country.

Encompassing nine dates in five cities over three states in Jan.-Feb. 1968, the tour ran, in order: Eureka, CA; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; Eugene, OR; Portland again; and Ashland, OR.

This "Notice!" poster also has the fun distinction of being the first psychedelic poster image to appear in the Art of Rock, on page 11, in fact this same tour stop, albeit in the "rare blow-torched version."

Also making these scarce posters popular was the new direction the band's music was heading in. As the coffee-table book Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip (Dorling Kindersley books, 2003) puts it, "Songs now began to flow into each other, rather than having distinct 'beginnings' and 'endings.' A typical set became more like a linked suite than a mere collection of songs, and the songs themselves became vehicles for ever-more incandescent jamming. A lot of the old rock 'n' roll and R&B material got left behind as the band scaled the heights of psychedelic improvisation."

Measuring 12 3/4" x 20", this poster was given a grade of 6.5 Fine Plus by CGC (the Certified Guaranty Company). From the David Swartz Concert Poster Collection. COA from Heritage Auctions.

Literature: See Grushkin, Paul, The Art of Rock - Posters from Presley to Punk, Abbeville Press, New York, 1987, p.287 (illus.).

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