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 design of this poster was a collaborative effort between Alton Kelley and Rick Griffin. Kelley was an aircraft mechanic in Connecticut, but his interest in mechanics had always been combined with an interest in art and collage. He moved to California in 1964 and began putting on dances in San Francisco in 1965. He handled the promotion, drawing and distribution of posters and worked with other artists such as Stanley Mouse and Rick Griffin, combining his interest in popular culture imagery with the other artists' drafting skills. This poster, for instance, uses the wrapper of a popular Californian candy bar (Abba-Zaba) as a psychedelic background.

Rick Griffin spent his youth in South West USA, surfing and cartooning. His first job was as a staff artist for Surfer Magazine, and he created album graphics for surf musicians such as Dick Dale. He settled in San Francisco in 1966, where he created poster art for the Human Be-In, the hippie happening in Golden Gate Park that spawned the Summer of Love. He took his influences from American advertising and counter culture, using symbolic emblems such as flaming eyeballs, Braves, bleeding hearts and skulls.

This gig was headlined by It's a Beautiful Day, a psychedelic rock band contemporary to Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, but who never quite reached their levels of success. Supporting them were Deep Purple, an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock. They were once listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as "the loudest pop group", and have sold over 100 million albums worldwide