BG-14 · Wes Wilson
San Francisco
The Independence Ball -- Dead & Love
The Independence Ball was Bill Graham's three-night stand over July 1-3, 1966, and its poster -- BG-14, by Wes Wilson, in the early formative run that was teaching San Francisco what a rock poster could be -- is one of the few early Fillmore images never reprinted. July 3 belonged to the Grateful Dead, Love, and a placeholder billed only as "Group B." On the poster the Dead sat on top, but the truth of the night is…
Read the full story →Also on July 3
Hollywood Bowl
On July 3, 1965, the Beach Boys headlined a twelve-act "Summer Spectacular" at the Hollywood Bowl -- the Byrds, the Kinks, Sonny & Cher, the Righteous Brothers, Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs, the Sir Douglas Quintet and more beneath them, some fifteen thousand in the seats. It is remembered for two re…
Read about this poster →Electric Theater
On July 3, 1968, Country Joe and the Fish opened a two-night stand at the Electric Theater on North Clark Street in Chicago -- the psychedelic ballroom soon renamed the Kinetic Playground. Berkeley's leading rock export, carrying "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag," played the city seven weeks befor…
Read about this poster →Were You There?
Do you have memories of this show, or an original BG-14 poster? On This Day in Art Rock History celebrates the people who lived through the psychedelic era. Your stories and collections matter to this archive.