This is an original first-printing psychedelic concert poster for Pink Floyd (“From England”) playing at the Sound Factory in California's state capitol of Sacramento on Friday and Saturday nights, August 16 & 17, 1968. Opening acts were Initial Shock and the A.B. Skhy Blues Band. The concert occurred not long after the release of the band's second album, A Saucerful of Secrets, and helped introduced the group's newest member, David Gilmour.
The venue was the mysterious Sound Factory in Sacramento, about which little is known today outside of a selection of beautifully designed posters from 1968-69. Because the Sound Factory was a small venue, a very small quantity of this poster was printed, and they are quite difficult to find today. Scenes from 1930s Flash Gordon films add to the cosmic mystique of this rare Pink Floyd poster, with artwork done by San Andreas Fault (Tad Hunter).
The stylized images feature Ming the Merciless, who first appeared in the Flash Gordon comic strip in 1934. He has since been the main villain of the strip and its related movie serials, television series and film adaptation. Ming is depicted as a ruthless tyrant who rules the planet Mongo. Several different scenes from the series as well as the rich colors as to the surreal aspect of this cool poster.
Initial Shock were actually from Missoula, Montana and had formed in 1966 as The Chosen Few. Then they moved to San Francisco to join the scene in 1967 and changed their name to The Initial Shock, but sometimes "the" was dropped. They broke up in 1969 due to drugs and personal problems.
A.B. Skhy was another band out of the Midwest, from Milwaukee, an electric blues band that formed in '68. They signed to MGM Records but never gained commercial traction. Their keyboard player, Howard Wales, went on to play with the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia.