A vintage, genuine Yardbirds appearance poster from the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on July 22, 1967, in the ‘beachy’ Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica, California. The venue was literally just a few hundred yards from the beach.

This Jim Salzer Presents concert poster is from the promoter who usually worked up in Ventura, Oxnard and Santa Barbara, CA, ranging from 1-2 hours to the north by car. This is the only L.A. show that he ever promoted, that I’m aware of.

It’s remarkable that one rock group produced three of the five greatest electric-guitar gods ever… Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page,. This Yardbirds street sign, however, pictures just Page, as the other two had already passed through the band.

Interesting to see how Jimmy Page has a peace symbol directly above his head, seemingly randomly placed there by poster artist Richard Tolmach.

Probably the catchiest thing about this Yardbirds window card is the hand-sketched renditions of the faces of Yardbirds Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty, Jimmy Page and Keith Relf.

They take on the appearance of a paint-by-numbers piece, in a way. The line drawings are very stylized in the facial areas, with lead singer Keith Relf getting a lot of yellow treatment (on the far right).

Here’s a key tip for collectors: See the lines extending down from the four heads in the blue area? If those lines continue down into the green background behind the red lettering, then it’s a first printing of this Yardbirds event poster.

On the other hand, if your green area (behind the red lettering “Moby” and “Captain”) is solid green, with no traces of the lines, then you have an after-the-show merchandising version, which was mass produced (and therefore, lacking any collector’s value).

As noted earlier, this Yardbirds tour poster was printed on paper, not cardboard, as was pretty much the case with all of Salzer’s concert posters from the era.

This poster has been reprinted by Salzer’s organization down through the years, but in this video blog I tell you how to tell the originals from the reproductions.

This Yardbirds tour placard features a colorful psychedelic design done by Tolmach. This is one of several concert posters that Tolmach drew up for promoter Salzer.

Tolmach used four basic colors – green, blue, red and yellow – to get his message across and create excitement.

This is most likely the “busiest” Yardbirds concert announcement I’ve ever encountered, with its psychedelic artwork, splashy colors, group members’ faces and the four opening bands.

Those under-billed groups were Moby Grape, Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, Iron Butterfly, and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band – all California bands of the day.

Oddly, this Yardbirds billboard doesn’t give credit to any light show, so maybe this show didn’t have one.

That may have been because this was truly an out-of-town show for promoter Salzer, and perhaps he didn’t have light-show connections with anyone down in L.A. We have to remember, this was still a very innocent age.

Notice how the yellow banner along the bottom of this Yardbirds placard delivers the hard details: ticket prices of $3, $4, $5, Concert time 8 P.M., and venue Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

Then on first printings only, at the very bottom center below “Monica Civic,” it states, “Maron Litho Inc., Oxnard, Calif.” This credit is missing from all subsequent printings of the poster.

Now, some collectors would rather have a cardboard Yardbirds fence poster instead of a paper psychedelic one like this, but the good news is, there are several examples of both for the Yardbirds in the 1960s, so collectors can make their choice on what to collect.

However, once Led Zeppelin arrived about 18 months later, the majority of their concert posters were of a psychedelic nature.

If you watch this video, you’ll see that another version of this Yardbirds window display was printed without any yellow color. It looks a little odd, featuring just red and blue colors.

But what about the green? That color was created when the blue and yellow inks merged, of course, all occurring in the bottom half of the poster.

This Yardbirds street poster is talked about in detail by long-time British Invasion fan and collector Peter Howard. That would be me, and I can be reached either at pete@postercentral.com or 805-540-0020. I also pay TOP DOLLAR for vintage Yardbirds and British Invasion concert advertisements like this.

And if you’ve never seen my web page depicting several other cool, ’60s psych rock posters, then by all means head on over: http://www.postercentral.com/psychedelic.htm