In March of 1967, John Van Hamersveld was visiting his surf/artist friend, Rick Griffin, an underground poster maker, in San Francisco. He had money from his Capitol Records job to travel and had two loft studios with his roommates wanting something to do. He returned and started a production company called ‘Pinnacle Rock Concerts’ for which he designed the posters and his partners managed the deals and dates.

The Pinnacle concert production company was the first significant concert and production company to put on rock concerts and dances in Los Angeles, mostly at the Shrine Auditorium. Though the Pinnacle concerts numbers just 14 and spanned less than a year, from November 1967 to September 1968, they included such some of the most important artists at the time including Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Buffalo Springfield, Jeff Beck, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, the Velvet Underground and Vanilla Fudge.

This original poster “Amazing Electrical Wonders” was created for the first concert in what became known as the Pinnacle/Shrine series by the legendary John Van Hamersveld. The concert slowly evolved into a battle of the bands with LA’s Buffalo Springfield going up against and the Grateful Dead, from up in the SF bay area. The Buffalo Springfield had just released their second album, “Buffalo Springfield Again,” just 10 days before these shows and had a big Top Ten hit with “For What it’s Worth.”