'67 Toronto Dead Poster in Auction

News-Antique.com has a primer about the Dead in their auction announcment:

Bill Graham's 1967 Toronto GRATEFUL DEAD with JEFFERSON AIRPLANE Concert Poster in near mint condition, and 1100 other lots will be sold Dec. 16 in the ItsOnlyRockNRoll.com Catalog and online auction.

THE GRATEFUL DEAD
While the national media frenzy surrounding the arrival of Beatlemania in 1964 continued unabated through 1965, a burgeoning, youth-based cultural movement was receiving but scant attention from the mainstream press. Not until 1967's "Summer of Love" was America formally introduced to this "psychedelic" phenomenon...and music was the conduit through which psychedelia was advanced.

Enter the GRATEFUL DEAD! After evolving from a jug band in '64 into a rock band with r & b tendencies called the Warlocks in early '65, Jerry Garcia settles on the name, Grateful Dead, after perusing the Oxford Dictionary for ideas on the eve of playing with Jefferson Airplane at the opening of Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium in December '65. Arriving on the San Francisco music scene with no fanfare, their '67 debut for Warner Brothers peaks at a dismal #73. Although receiving no airplay on conventional Top Forty radio, they are among the first wave of artists to find enthusiastic acceptance on the new underground fm radio format. The Grateful Dead reaches cult status as the 1960's come to a close.... and for the next twenty-five years, they weather the storms of personnel changes...drug busts...drug abuse, and all the usual twists and turns that traverse a working unit of life-long friends and musicians.

That relentless, seemingly never-ending tour schedule that established them as a premier concert draw for thirty years came to an end in 1995 with the death of Jerry Garcia. While various mutations involving Dead alumni continue to tour, their ever-expanding fan base continues on that "long strange trip."

You will find the Grateful Dead's long and storied history is visually enticing as you pore over our extensive collection of posters and memorabilia we offer here. It's not by chance that the Grateful Dead are, far and away, the subject of more psychedelic poster art than any other musical act. After all, they were there from the very beginning.

Lot # 401 - GRATEFUL DEAD, JEFFERSON AIRPLANE BG74 TORONTO CONCERT POSTER
1967. In the summer of 1967, Bill Graham promoted a concert series featuring The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane playing eight performances at Toronto's O'Keefe Center. This BG 74 first printing is quite unusual in that it was originally cut from a larger sheet; presumably one that included handbills. The borders are slightly larger on all four sides; a fact which would allow for the poster to be trimmed to the original 14 x 20.5" size. This outstanding example of one of the premier pieces (and most elusive) of the Bill Graham poster series exhibits one minor crease; otherwise it is NRMT.

Please visit ItsOnlyRockAndRoll for more about the Auction