A sought after concert poster by Colleen Cannon for a performance by reggae legends Bob Marley & The Wailers at the Greek Theatre at the University of California, Berkeley, on  Friday 21st July 1978 during the Kaya Tour in support of their album Kaya. Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood ventured backstage to introduce himself before the Berkeley show and Mick Jagger attended the concert the following night in Burbank, when Peter Tosh joined Bob on stage to sing Get Up, Stand Up, which they had co-written years before. 

In a 2013 interview with Joe Jurgensen, designer Colleen Cannon recalled: There was little time to make the poster and on top of that I had never designed a professional concert poster before. Yes, it was my first poster ever and it was for Bob Marley! ...It was important to me to distinguish my Bob Marley poster from the other concert posters – typically photographs of Bob Marley. I had studied photo-silk-screening at Stanford and wanted to achieve a similar effect with color blocking. I was given a few photos and had my own album covers to study and be inspired by, including Rastaman Vibration, African Herbsman and Kaya. In addition, I also made some high contrast photocopies of several photos to help envision the color separation and blocking of the portrait. It was important to me to use multiple resources to capture Bob Marley’s spirit more so than just his image. I wanted viewers to see the ‘I and I’ within Bob’s portrait. It was a short press run typical of the time, not more than 500 were printed. The night was electric, amazing.  Bob Marley was in the prime of his life.  The band was cookin’ and the I-Three’s outstanding harmonies had the Greek Theater rockin’.

Condition

Excellent (A-)

Unfolded, not backed. Minor bumps to corners and a few minor nicks to edges. Uneven printing to lower border and ticket details. Image and colours to main artwork excellent.