Andy Warhol, 1966

This is an original first print of one of the most important posters in the Fillmore series. The New York, East Coast scene meets the West Coast scene. Andy Warhol brought his entire "Exploding Plastic Inevitable," show to San Francisco which featured screenings of Warhol's films, dancing by Factory regulars like George Malanga and Edie Sedgwick, and performance art by Mary Woronov, and Barbara Rubin. Playing the music to accompany it was The Velvet Underground and Nico, "Pop Girl of 66". [While he was their manager, the Velvets became part of Warhol’s multimedia road show].

The other band was the Mothers of Invention with Frank Zappa. Putting the Velvets and Frank Zappa together with an appearance by Andy Warhol was one of the more inventive ideas that Bill Graham had. The art was done by Wes Wilson and he hand-signed this poster in pencil.  This artwork is one of the most coveted of the early 1966 posters. 

The Warhol crowd hated the hippie culture of San Francisco. Lou Reed said, “"We had vast objections to the whole San Francisco scene. It's just tedious, a lie and untalented. They can't play and they certainly can't write... You know, people like Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead are just the most untalented bores that ever came up.” Andy Warhol told Popism, “The San Francisco scene was bands and audiences grooving together... whereas the Velvets' style was to alienate people... “

Andy Warhol's lighting engineer Danny Williams pioneered many innovations that have since become standard practice in rock music light show including stroboscopes, slides and film projections onstage. At Bill Graham's request he was soon to come back and build more. Despite that fact, the overall appearance was laced with such mutual dislike that Bill Graham pulled the plug on the Velvets the second night when the band left the stage after leaning their instruments against the amplifiers creating a "barrage of sonic feedback".