Poster Shock

I went to the Denver Art Museum today to check out its much-anticipated Rock Poster exhibit, a collection of psychedelic art, mainly rock posters, from the golden age of hippie music, from 1965-71. I don't think I realized just how dynamic that era really was. Everyone was there: the Dead, Credence, Joplin, Hendrix, The Doors, the Beats (Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Snyder, et al), Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, etc., etc.

A lot of the art certainly seemed designed for an LSD trip -- kinetic, organic, fluid, colorful. There were plenty of subtle and not-so-subtle drug references, such as a miner panning for gold at the corner of one venue, hinting of the discovery of a particularly delicious type of marijuana bud.

One poster advertised for a 1969 concert featuring Country Joe and the Fish, Led Zeppelin and Taj Mahal. But the most amazing thing was the price of the ticket: $3.50. And only $3 for Thursday's show. You can't even buy a soda for $3 at a concert these days!

A couple of other posters below. It's interesting to see how the style changed from the typical psychedelic look in the first poster to one more like a collage, something you would see on a Pink Floyd album cover in later years, in the second.

Click on any of the posters to learn more about them from the DAM's Web site. The three-month exhibit ends July 19.