About this poster

This would be the band's first true appearance in Buffalo, as well as their first show promoted by Harvey Weinstein, the now-infamous Hollywood mogul. The poster is significant and special for a number of reasons, first and foremost being the depiction of Ron "Pig Pen" McKernan, the band's original keyboard player. Not only is Pig Pen not often portrayed on Grateful Dead concert posters, he tragically passed away just 23 days before this show at the all-too-young age of 27. He is seen at the far left of the group's lineup, standing next to Jerry Garcia. Additionally, this poster, when rare examples do surface, nearly always has a New Riders of the Purple Sage sticker placed on the front, as the band was added to the bill just days prior to the show. This example has no such sticker, and is entirely devoted to the Grateful Dead. Perhaps more important than that fact, however, is the abundance of references to the counter-cultural elements of the time. The character "Red" from Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is seen balancing Tom Wolfe's epic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test on his head, and Kesey's Further Bus is seen with Merry Pranksters on the top, surging from the pages of the book with the San Francisco Bay Bridge looming in the background. Leaning up against the bus we find Sam Cutler, who at the time was the touring manager for the Dead, but is perhaps best known as the former tour manager for the Rolling Stones, and is often demonized as a catalyst for the tragic events that occurred at Altamont Speedway during the Stones' free concert in 1969. Cutler stayed in the US after the events at Altamont to deal with the aftermath, and was befriended by Jerry Garcia and eventually became co-manager of the band as well as their agent. Additionally, there is reference to Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle, as a melting cube of Ice Nine is depicted to the right of the bus. Ice Nine is a fictional substance that appears in the book, and is supposed to be a more stable form of water than common ice, which instead of melting at zero degrees Celsius, melts at 45.8 degrees Celsius, and its contact with normal water is supposed to act as a seed crystal, freezing the entire body of water. The issue of freezing the entire oceans of the earth is the central theme to Vonnegut's book. Also, we find the Grateful Dead's official clown, Wavy Gravy, with one of his hogs. Wavy Gravy founded the Hog Farm in Tujunga, CA, an activist commune that eventually morphed into a sort of "mobile, hallucination-extended family," active internationally in both music and politics. Today it is considered to be America's longest-running hippie commune. The six band members stand proudly in front of the bus, above their printed name.