Peace Dove

BG-100 was one of Bonnie MacLean's favorite posters. She started the assignment when she was pregnant with her son and wove the peace dove into the composition as her symbolic wish for the new year. This New Year's Eve concert continued the Bill Graham tradition of non-stop, 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. celebration and included breakfast for the diehard fans remaining on the dance floor. MacLean also did a poster for the run-up to New Year’s Even known as “Six Days of Sound.”

The idea of a universal mind, of a peaceful planet where people could get live in harmony with other people and the Earth was the essence of the utopian hippie dream coming out of San Francisco in 1966-67. This was New Years 1967 and there was still considerable optimism for that dream although it was starting to fall apart, partially under the weight of itself. The Summer of Love had inspired 100,000 young people to move to the Haight most without jobs or a place to live. The social fabric was straining.

By the next year the two New Year’s posters were done by Lee Conklin and were completely different, dystopian visions worthy of Hieronymus Bosch. But for now, all was still pretty well.