Bill Graham anticipated the national trend towards huge outdoor rock concert events that answered new industry demands: the bands' for maximum profit with minimum fan exposure, and the fans' for maximum band exposure at minimum cost. In 1973, Graham introduced San Francisco to his first Day on the Green at Kezar Stadium. The event, and the many others held at the Oakland Coliseum, was special and combined Graham's familiar balloons and posters with giant sets and urgent medical care for the sensorily-sated in a theatre-like atmosphere. Day on the Green became code for outdoor music immersion.

Bill Graham's early concerts were "events" and BG008 is an excellent example of the unusual fare. Top billing was Andy Warhol and his Plastic Inevitable, with the Velvet Underground and Nico "Pop Girl of '66." The show was an amazing, kinetic rock event with vocals, keyboard and dance projected on the wall in strobe light fractured frames. The Mothers rounded out the evening.

Artist Conklin restrained himself to a vaguely classical reference on this garish della Robia wreath of flowers, milky breasts and entangled bodies with the New Year's babe emerging from the Dead's mascot. The 1969 New Year's Eve concert, featuring perennial performers the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, It's A Beautiful Day and Santana, was held at Winterland.

Jimi Hendrix liked Byrd's drawing on this poster so much that he later asked the artist to design a press kit cover for him. Byrd used a drop-bow compass to draw the little circles, and he labored to get Hendrix's hair "... Just right." Hendrix was at the height of his career in mid-1968, and he did two shows for the one-night-only concert. Sly & the Family Stone, not mentioned on the poster, was the second band. Just starting to get airplay, Sly was relatively unknown and was heckled by a crowd that couldn't have cared less who was opening up for Hendrix.

Bill Graham's early concerts were "events" and BG008 is an excellent example of the unusual fare. Top billing was Andy Warhol and his Plastic Inevitable, with the Velvet Underground and Nico "Pop Girl of '66." The show was an amazing, kinetic rock event with vocals, keyboard and dance projected on the wall in strobe light fractured frames. The Mothers rounded out the evening.

Tuten acquiesced to the power of the blimp in this Led Zeppelin poster. The concert was typical Graham fare and mixed the goofy sounds of the Bonzo Dog Band with jazz-great Rahsaan Roland Kirk & His Vibration Society. Kirk insisted that his band be named on event posters and billboards, but occasionally, and to his great annoyance, the name didn't always fit. The poster gave a heads-up to Stones fans for their concert on Sunday.

Elton John was America's darling in 1975. June saw the introduction of his newly-formed Elton John band, rock-and-rollers who played "... At a chug rather than a race," and in August he celebrated the fifth anniversary of his American debut with two benefit concerts in L.A. and a special anniversary tour book. His picture was frequently on the cover of American magazines that queried his looks, his loves and his finances in articles ranging from racy to sober and back again, and he embarked on the Rock of the Westies U.S. tour. The performer's concert costumes and eyewear were already signature, and this autumn concert t-shirt reflects them in the artwork.

Ready for the World had their last big hit, Love You Down, in 1986. Following on the heels of Oh Sheila, this New Year's Eve concert would be one of their last big performances. Houston-born and Harlem-raised Oran "Juice" Jones, too, had a brief career, hitting it big with The Rain in 1986 and dropping from the tour circuit after this appearance.

Winterland was the Stones' third stop on their North American Tour. Working their way down the West Coast from Vancouver and Seattle, the concert was called Tumblin' Dice after one of their major songs and featured crowd-favorites Brown Sugar and You Can't Always Get What You Want. The Tour left San Francisco for a June 9 performance in Los Angeles and finished up at Madison Square Garden on July 26.

Olde-time advertising was Tuten's vehicle of choice for this concert featuring Motown recording artist and influential sax man Junior Walker and his All Stars.

Artist Conklin restrained himself to a vaguely classical reference on this garish della Robia wreath of flowers, milky breasts and entangled bodies with the New Year's babe emerging from the Dead's mascot. The 1969 New Year's Eve concert, featuring perennial performers the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, It's A Beautiful Day and Santana, was held at Winterland.

Led Zeppelin's incredible appeal could guarantee a sell-out crowd of rebels or wannabees, but that talent and the generally hospitable demeanor of Robert Plant notwithstanding, the band was not among Bill Graham's favorites. Hedonistic and heavily protected by a personal security force of epic, in pounds and punching-power, proportions, the band was famous for leaving damaged digs and damsels in its wake. This performance in Oakland is memorable for a behind the scenes brou-ha-ha that sent some Graham staff to the emergency room and lawyers noble [Graham's] and oleaginous [Graham's take] opining over the proceedings. In the end, the band returned for the second night's performance in the fashionably late timeframe their fans had come to expect, and Graham and his people had their justice. In a sad footnote to this concert, Plant's young son died suddenly and unexpectedly a short time later, and Led Zeppelin cancelled the balance of their American tour. Day[s] on the Green were special

From this concert emerged "Bless Its Little Pointed Head," the definitive and first live-concert recording of San Francisco's premier psychedelic band. Recorded both at this concert and at the Fillmore East gig soon following, the album was released in early 1969 and revealed the Jefferson Airplane at their rocking to ribald-with-some-tripping-on-the-side best and treated the listeners to the vocal intertwining of Grace Slick and Marty Balin.

Bill Graham's early concerts were "events" and BG008 is an excellent example of the unusual fare. Top billing was Andy Warhol and his Plastic Inevitable, with the Velvet Underground and Nico "Pop Girl of '66." The show was an amazing, kinetic rock event with vocals, keyboard and dance projected on the wall in strobe light fractured frames. The Mothers rounded out the evening.

Winterland was the Stones' third stop on their North American Tour. Working their way down the West Coast from Vancouver and Seattle, the concert was called Tumblin' Dice after one of their major songs and featured crowd-favorites Brown Sugar and You Can't Always Get What You Want. The Tour left San Francisco for a June 9 performance in Los Angeles and finished up at Madison Square Garden on July 26.

Olde-time advertising was Tuten's vehicle of choice for this concert featuring Motown recording artist and influential sax man Junior Walker and his All Stars.

Jack Healy of Amnesty International sought out Bill Graham to produce a tour that would focus attention on their efforts world-wide over the last 25 years. Graham told Healy what he told anyone who approached him with a worthy cause: "... get me the talent and I'll do the rest." The tour quickly took shape after Bono of U2 signed on, but the undertaking was not without crises. An early venue lost money, and there was a contentious meeting about television rights. In the end, the tour served as excellent promo for the participating bands, the concerts were sold out, and MTV filmed the grand finale at Giant's Stadium.

Randy Tuten and Daddy Bread, a San Francisco friend and graphic artist named Bill Bostedt, teamed up on this return to an earlier Fillmore-style poster advertising Taj Mahal. The poster gave a heads-up for the Ten Years After concert at Winterland the following weekend.

"If I hadn't done it, someone else would have. ???once we were going to do it, we wanted to do it right. ???" By the early 70's rock bands were burned out from the road. Performers wanted to travel less and make money faster. Bill Graham's Day on the Green concerts were the first prototypes of "festival" shows - multi performer sets in stadium settings. Staged on the lawn of the Oakland Coliseum, the Day on the Green concerts were a summer series started in 1973 that continued until shortly after Graham's death in 1991. "That was why I came up with the name "Day on the Green". I wanted to make these events special. I wanted to create giant outdoor sets so the bands would be going into a space that was like a theater piece."

The nationally-syndicated King Biscuit Flower Hour began broadcasting live rock concerts and artist interviews on FM stations in 1973, and today's lucky fans are thousands of concerts and almost 400 interviews richer.

Bill Graham anticipated the national trend towards huge outdoor rock concert events that answered new industry demands: the bands' for maximum profit with minimum fan exposure, and the fans' for maximum band exposure at minimum cost. In 1973, Graham introduced San Francisco to his first Day on the Green at Kezar Stadium. The event, and the many others held at the Oakland Coliseum, was special and combined Graham's familiar balloons and posters with giant sets and urgent medical care for the sensorily-sated in a theatre-like atmosphere. Day on the Green became code for outdoor music immersion.

Watkins Glen was the epic brainchild of Jim Koplik and Shelly Finkel, Connecticut rock promoters who had also orchestrated Summer Jam. Inspired by an onstage impromptu jam session between the Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers, they came up with the idea for Watkins Glen and commissioned Bill Graham to build the backstage compound and supply production. The three bands lined up for the show were favorites of all three organizers, and were perfect for an open-space gig. In a special and memorable turn of events, 600,000 people showed up for this show at the Watkins Glen racetrack in Upstate New York, and kids were everywhere, crowding the landscape the day before the concert. All of them expected to do a sound check before performing, but didn't plan on doing one before a live audience - but there was no way that huge crowd was going anywhere. The Band sound-checked first, doing their entire run-through in one song. The crowd rocked. The Allman Brothers were next, playing for an hour, an

The macabre thespian raged against a grievous affront: the Grateful Dead, pointedly absent from the billing, were busted in New Orleans for marijuana possession. The fine print at the top of the poster indicated that this was a benefit concert for the band.

"If I hadn't done it, someone else would have. ???once we were going to do it, we wanted to do it right. ???" By the early 70's rock bands were burned out from the road. Performers wanted to travel less and make money faster. Bill Graham's Day on the Green concerts were the first prototypes of "festival" shows - multi performer sets in stadium settings. Staged on the lawn of the Oakland Coliseum, the Day on the Green concerts were a summer series started in 1973 that continued until shortly after Graham's death in 1991. "That was why I came up with the name "Day on the Green". I wanted to make these events special. I wanted to create giant outdoor sets so the bands would be going into a space that was like a theater piece."