Labor Day itself — Monday, September 5, 1966 — closed out the Fillmore's long weekend with the act that makes BG-26 more interesting than a straight rock bill: Martha & the Vandellas, with Johnny Talbot & De Thangs (the same Wes Wilson poster, wolfgangs.com BG026; trps.org).

It's easy to forget how deliberately Bill Graham mixed Motown and R&B into the psychedelic ballroom. Booking Martha Reeves and the Vandellas — "Dancing in the Street," "Nowhere to Run" — onto the closing night of a weekend that had opened with the Airplane and the Dead wasn't a novelty; it was the house style. Graham wanted the Fillmore audience hearing the music the San Francisco bands had learned from. Johnny Talbot & De Thangs, an Oakland R&B outfit, filled out the bill.

By this Monday the Avalon's FD-24 weekend had ended, but the Matrix's Blues Project residency rolled on. The next Fillmore poster, BG-27, was already only four days away — the Mothers of Invention, September 9 (see that date).