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 poster was the first concert for what became known as the Pinnacle/Shrine series of concerts promoted posters by John Van Hamersveld.