Offered is an extremely scarce concert poster for the Grateful Dead's series of shows at New York's Cafe Au Go Go on June 1-10, 1967. These shows were the Dead's first shows on the East Coast. The Greenwich Village basement club on Bleeker Street was a dank, dark hole of a place, but it introduced the Dead to New Yorkers for that set of shows. The band tried to create as much buzz as possible during their stay, playing a free show in Tompkins Square Park on June 1 and squeezing in another gig at SUNY Stony Brook out on Long Island.
There is a great deal of scholarship (and speculation) concerning the number of shows that actually occurred at the Cafe Au Go Go during that run. Some sites claim The Dead only played there on June 6-11, but this poster and advertisements in New York papers both list the dates as June 1-11. Logically, the West Coast band travelled a long way and since they lived basically hand to mouth from the concert revenue they earned on the road, it seems unlikely they would let 5 or 6 shows get cancelled. Another clue that supports them playing the 11 dates on the poster is a photograph of the band in New York during that stay. In the photo, the wall behind them not only shows the offered poster on the right side (look closely), but another larger, yellow poster promoting the same run of shows, June 1-11, at the Cafe Au Go Go. Furthermore, a copy of this yellow poster is pasted on top of our poster, indicating it was produced and displayed at a later time. Still not conclusive, but at least we got to add to the confusion! In the photo, Jerry Garcia is actually holding a piece of one of the yellow posters in his hand, as if these posters didn't have enough trouble surviving.
Regardless, the offered poster is a stunning artifact from the moment the rest of the world started to find out about the Dead. The letterpress printing method was employed to produce the poster, and the artist is Daniel Fennell, with the Christ figure borrowed from the 15th century painting "The Lamentation Over the Dead Christ" by Andrea Mantegna. The small type along the art's edge reads "1967 Daniel Fennell ©Liberty Graphics LTD. Cafe Au Go Go Activities, Inc." The poster measures 14 x 22 inches and presents with heavy toning and wear that includes edge tears and small areas of paper loss, with wrinkling and pin holes at the corners. Some water damage may have occurred, but the color is still very bright. Very Good to Excellent condition.