The Fillmore

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The Fillmore, 2010

The Fillmore was the name of three music theaters run by concert promoter Bill Graham in the United States : Fillmore East in New York City and Fillmore West as the successor to the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco .

The address is 1805 Geary Boulevard, San Francisco.

prehistory

The later Fillmore was opened in 1912 as a dance hall and dance school (Majestic Hall, Majestic Academy of Dancing) and designed in the Italian style by the architects James and Merritt Reid. As a venue for dance events, it was continued under various names into the 1930s (Get Acquainted Society, Ambassador Dance Hall) and was a roller skating rink in the 1940s. From 1952 the concert promoter Charles Sullivan had leading African American musicians such as Ike and Tina Turner and James Brown perform here.

The Fillmore Auditorium (1965-1968)

Bill Graham (around 1990)

In 1965, Bill Graham opened the rock dance palace called The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard. The Fillmore district , after which the club was named, is an area that is not exactly delimited between the districts of Western Addition and the Pacific Heights . The Fillmore Auditorium, as well as the Avalon Ballroom and Winterland , also run by Bill Graham, often featured San Francisco-based psychedelic rock bands such as the Grateful Dead , Jefferson Airplane, and Quicksilver Messenger Service . The posters created for these concerts are also remarkable as psychedelic works of art .

In 1968 the club moved to another part of the city (see below), while the premises continued to be used for concerts in the 1970s and early 1980s. Under the name The Elite Club , mainly punk rock concerts took place here, among others by Bad Religion , Black Flag , Bad Brains , Flipper , Dead Kennedys , TSOL , Gang of Four and Public Image Ltd.

It wasn't until the mid-1980s that Graham began to hold concerts in the original Fillmore Auditorium again. After the premises were damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 , the Fillmore had to be closed again in October 1989.

The Fillmore West (1968-1971)

Due to problems in the neighborhood and the modest capacity of the hall, the Fillmore Auditorium moved to the former Carousel Ballroom on Market Street at the corner of South Van Ness Avenue in July 1968 and was henceforth called Fillmore West to distinguish it from the now established Fillmore East .

On the occasion of the closing of the Fillmore West on July 4, 1971, there was a closing event with bands such as Santana , Creedence Clearwater Revival and a reading by Allen Ginsberg . In 1972 a documentary called Fillmore about the last concerts and a 3 LP album called Fillmore: The Last Days were released.

The Fillmore East (1968-1971)

The building of the former Fillmore East: the red brick building in the middle

On March 8, 1968, the Fillmore East opened on the corner of 2nd Ave / East 6th Street in the borough of Manhattan , New York City and quickly became known as "The Church of Rock and Roll" because of the high-quality and highly frequented program .

As the fee demands of artists and bands continued to rise, Bill Graham closed the Fillmore East on June 27, 1971 and the Fillmore West later that year. The Filmore East did not reopen. There is now a bank in the building of the former Church of Rock and Roll .

The Fillmore (San Francisco) since 1994

After Graham's death in a helicopter crash in 1991, the Fillmore Auditorium on the corner of Geary Boulevard and Fillmore Street was renovated and reopened in 1994 under the old name The Fillmore . Today it is again one of the most popular concert venues in San Francisco. The walls in many parts of the club, decorated with original concert posters from four decades of rock music, are particularly impressive.

The Fillmore district places particular emphasis on its music scene. The Fillmore Jazz Festival takes place annually as the largest free jazz festival on the American west coast.

Music history

The Fillmore Clubs usually hosted two concerts per evening several nights a week. Almost all bands have signed contracts for live shows at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.

For several years, the elite of the American rock scene, but also greats of jazz and jazz rock, performed in the Fillmore clubs. Graham regularly booked the bands one after the other in both concert venues, the one on the east coast and the one on the west coast.

The many bands and musicians who made live recordings at the Fillmore East or West include: The Allman Brothers Band , Frank Zappa , Derek and the Dominos , Cream , Ten Years After , Humble Pie , The Doors , Aretha Franklin , Jimi Hendrix , Procol Harum , Santana , Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young , Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield , Country Joe and the Fish , Miles Davis , Johnny Winter , Muddy Waters , Albert King , Stevie Ray Vaughan , Tommy Castro , Don Ellis , HP Lovecraft , Tower of Power , Charles Lloyd , The Byrds , Chuck Berry , The Who , Neil Young and many more.

Discography

Filmography

Web links

Commons : The Fillmore  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bad Religion website - see: photos of concert posters; Retrieved April 27, 2013
  2. ↑ Photo of the building in Wikimedia - see: the red brick building in the middle. Retrieved April 27, 2013
  3. ^ Fillmore Jazz Festival: History Retrieved April 27, 2013