http://www.postercentral.com A fun, original
Seattle Led Zeppelin window card from Sept. 1,
1970 at the
Seattle Center Coliseum.
Britain’s
Union Jack flag is the visual theme here, with four of them shown – perhaps one representing each band member.
This cardboard Seattle Led Zeppelin poster board measures the standard 14x22 inches and was constructed on durable card stock, to better withstand weather elements.
Interestingly, no printer’s credit is given anywhere, so we don’t know who made this. There’s usually a credit down in the bottom margin somewhere.
Four colors comprise this Seattle Led Zeppelin placard: red and blue, black and white.
People often forget that the white backing paper or poster board is an important color element; notice how many words are in white.
Black is used only in limited fashion, basically boxing off the three primary areas of the poster… big box in the middle, smaller rectangles at the top and bottom.
It’s funny how the band’s name is distorted on this particular Seattle Led Zeppelin in-person poster. It starts small on the left, gets big in the middle and then tapers off again on the right.
The famous zeppelin dirigible was not being widely used yet by the band in the summer of 1970, although it had appeared a few times on their advertising posters.
A local
Pacific Northwest designer,
Exit Arts, drew up this Seattle Led Zeppelin billboard, and they gave themselves a credit down in the lower left-hand margin.
But that’s just a company name;
I’ll bet the person who put it together really wishes they had dropped their name in there. How great would that look 50 years later?
This Seattle Led Zeppelin window display proclaims in big letters at the bottom, “Presented by
Concerts West.”
That was a local firm headed by promoter Tom Hulett, a huge concert promoter that presented just about every name act imaginable in the
1960s and ’70s.
Then there’s the ticket information on this Seattle Led Zeppelin event poster. “
Tickets $3
.50, $
4., $5., $6.,” it says in the bottom blue rectangle.
And then where to buy them is given: “
Fidelity Lane, Suburban Outlets.”
Obviously, this poster’s scant on detail, but Concerts West had a very efficient infrastructure in place for these events, so everyone knew what to do.
The top blue rectangle of this Seattle Led Zeppelin show placard is very simple, with just half-a-dozen words. “Seattle Center Coliseum,” it proclaims in large lettering.
And then no day of the week is given, interestingly… just “Sept. 1, 8 PM.” It was a Tuesday night, but people weren’t informed of that here.
One thing great about this Seattle Led Zeppelin concert
sign is the band was touring off their second
album, “
Led Zeppelin II.” Many a fan – including me - call that their favorite Zep LP.
But they were very close to releasing “
Led Zeppelin III,” so they were playing a lot of material from that album, too. For example, they opened their sets on this tour with “
Immigrant Song” from that record.
If you think this is a real early Seattle Led Zeppelin boxing-style concert poster, consider the fact that this was the band’s SIXTH tour of
America in less than two years!
That’s right… they came over here like crazy in the early days. Their manager,
Peter Grant, was very bullish on them touring the
States and getting his band as exposed as possible.
So that means this early Seattle Led Zeppelin ticket poster was actually preceded by five earlier tours of the States, all for which you’ll find concert posters.
The most famous one is probably from the
Fillmore West in January
1969 when the group was second-billed to
Country Joe & The Fish.
But this Seattle Led Zeppelin street sign is much scarcer than that
Bill Graham poster, because
Graham always printed huge quantities of his posters for later resale. That was not the case with this.
But an argument could easily be made that if Concerts West had printed thousands of extra copies of this poster, it would’ve sold briskly in the Pacific Northwest throughout the ’70s as the band’s popularity grew and grew.
Any way you look at it, it’s one heck of a Seattle Led Zeppelin concert advertisement, and for me, tops a T-shirt, unused ticket or newspaper clipping as the best souvenir you can have from the show.
By the way, the night before this, Zep had played in
Milwaukee, WI, doing a make-up show… 2,
000 miles away!
This Seattle Led Zeppelin fence poster is happily shown to you today, and narrated by,
Pete Howard of
California’s central coast. That’s me, and I proudly saw Zep my one time in
1972. I can be reached by using pete@postercentral.com, or by phoning up [805] 540-0020.
And to see another 1970 Led Zeppelin concert poster, this one from
Nashville, TN, just slip your mouse over to this page of my web site: http://www.postercentral.com/the1970s
.htm
- published: 09 Dec 2015
- views: 162