The Fillmore in San Francisco is a historic music venue, named after its original location at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard. Known as the Fillmore Auditorium in the mid-1960s, concert promoter Bill Graham began a series of concerts featuring bands from the counterculture of the time. In 1968, due to his spiralling success, he moved to a larger venue which he named Fillmore West. Having closed in 1971, and after extensive repair work to fix earthquake damage, Graham's venue was revived when Live Nation reopened the original Fillmore venue in 1994.

San Francisco in the mid-1960s was the hub of the LSD and Hippie scene and the cultural and political rebellion of 1967's Summer of Love. The resulting influence of these factors on the artists of the area created the fantastic psychedelic posters of the Fillmore. Art dealer Jacaeber Kastor said of the posters, "They couldn't just tell you the information about the show. They had to tell you what kind of people you might meet, what kind of far out trip you might have or perhaps even reveal the mysteries of the universe. Wow. Quantum mechanics, visual mudwrestling, Acid test pop quiz on a phone pole!"

The artist of this poster, Bonnie MacLean, had no formal training, but had attended life drawing classes at night whilst working in New York City. After moving to San Francisco she became Bill Graham's secretary at the office where he worked prior to opening the Fillmore. They fell in love and were married in 1968. As she worked on her creativity, drawing the current band line-ups and upcoming attractions on the Fillmore's chalkboards, the previous poster artist, Wes Wilson, abruptly left. Graham gave MacLean an easel and art supplies that Christmas and asked her to carry on the poster designs. She freely experimented with diverse cultural imagery, from Indigenous American totems to hipsters in Nehru jackets. The faces of the people she painted wore trance-like stares and serene gazes, evoking the detached spirituality of the sixties.

This gig featured Sam and Dave, the soul and rhythm and blues duo who performed together from 1961. Their crossover charts appeal helped to pave the way for the acceptance of soul music by white pop audiences, and their song "Soul Man" was one of the first songs by a black group to top the pop charts using the word "soul", helping define the genre soul music. The James Cotton Blues Band also played; famous for his harmonica playing, James Cotton's band mainly played their own arrangements of popular blues and R&B material from the 1950s and 60s, and toured with Janis Joplin.