Quicksilver Messenger Service Handbill
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BG007's two bands, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Final Solution, represent the extremes on a rock band career path. Quicksilver became a very successful band from the era, but opening band Final Solution played the Fillmore just this once, and faded from the rock scene. Wes Wilson's artwork here appears a bit restrained and easily readable, with his signature letters superimposed on an optical illusion cubist background.
The 1st printing (see BG007), produced before the concert, is black ink on white stock with union logo 221 in the lower right corner. The handbill measures 5 1/2" x 8 1/2".
The 1st printing A is on pink stock and also shows union logo 221. This pre-concert variation measures 5 1/2" x 8 1/2".
When the Avalon Ballroom and Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium began to hold weekly dance concerts, Wilson was called upon to design the posters. He created psychedelic posters from February 1966 to May 1967, when disputes over money severed his connection with Graham. Wilson pioneered the psychedelic rock poster. Intended for a particular audience, "one that was tuned in to the psychedelic experience," his art, and especially the exaggerated freehand lettering, emerged from Wilson's own involvement with that experience and the psychedelic art of light shows.