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*Unknown More info
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Grateful Dead More info
Edition Details
Year:1969
Class:Poster
Status:Official
Technique:Screen Print
Paper:porous construction paper stock
Size:16.375 X 23
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Venues
Washington University Quadrangle - St. Louis, MO
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The posters for this event were created and hand screen printed by students and were printed on the regular most common porous construction paper poster stock of the era. Since the poster stock soaked up so much ink in the printing process, many color combinations were experimented with, but upon much trial and error they found that to get a good readable copy they had to screen the colors more than 10 times- which just took too long to do the night before the show. Therefore, no more than 15 - 20 were ever printed in 1969

The photo image used on this poster was the standard Warner Brothers publicity shot with Pig Pen out front, and the skyline shows Brown and Brookings Halls as well as the campus cyclotron. Both are much clearer and more vivid on the actual poster than in these photographs.

This show was produced by the W.U. Student Union at the time and was one of the first in a very long series of W.I.L.D. (Walk In & Lay Down) Concerts in the Quadrangle, a large almost formal grassy area on campus crisscrossed with neat little cobblestone walkways like an English Garden. This area was completely surrounded by old ivy covered brick and stone buildings- most with turrets, archways, gargoyles or some other medieval architectural features. This was a private enclosed area, right in the heart of St. Louis.

On the day of the concert it rained, but the show went on anyway.

One of the most amazing things about this show was how the Dead adapted to the natural surroundings of their environment. Surrounded by brick and stone buildings the sound bounced around all over the place in the first two or three songs. Then right before our eyes they figured it out and began to work with the echos. At set break speakers were moved and adjusted and the soundboard was reworked. They came out from the set break smoking hard- and they timed everything to work with "the bounce".

By the end of the show Jerry was loading up riffs, waiting for the echo to bring them back to him- and then hitting the same licks faster the next time- timing the live notes to hit the amp just when the first notes were bouncing back. It's hard to explain, but it was cool to see and to be a part of. It was like they first figured out how to play in an echo chamber- and then took that into an even more psychedelic- but very controlled direction.
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