Aside from the Haight, no other place is more closely associated with the Hippies than the Fillmore. The thing is, they were only around for a few years while the spot itself has been around for over a hundred and twenty-three years. First off, the place is rather small by modern standards, with a capacity of just over 1,300 people. Oddly, it wasn’t supposed to be a music hall at all, it was built as a dance academy and operated as one until 1939 when it was turned into a Roller Skating rink.
In 1954, Charles Sullivan took over the place and helped make it into what we know it as today. Charles was respected as one of the city’s most successful African-American businessmen and had an eye for picking talent and promoting acts. Before the Hippies played on that stage, James Brown was bringing the heat, Tina Turner was blowing minds, and even Louis Armstrong performed there. At the time, Bill Graham was just a dude trying to make his mark in the industry. His first show there was in December of 1965 and it wasn’t The Dead or Jefferson Airplane, it was the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
After that, he started booking shows whenever Charles Sullivan didn’t have other acts lined up. Eventually, Graham signed a contract stating that Graham would take over the venue if anything ever happened to Sullivan. Sadly enough, Charles Sullivan was found shot to death on August 2nd, 1966. Lots of fingers got pointed but no charges were ever filed, and as of writing this, the murder remains unsolved.
Part of what helped seal the venue’s reputation in counterculture legend is a guy named Danny Williams who was the lighting guy and he was way ahead of his time. He’s one of the people who helped pioneer a lot of what are now standard practices such as the use of projections and making lighting an integral part of the experience. This fit really well when most of the audience was one copious amounts of really good LSD and had never seen anything like this before.
It was the mid 60’s that this place became a central hub for the hippies despite being over a mile and a half over a hill from the Haight. During its heyday, everyone who was anyone played there and it wasn’t always who you expected. Graham did a great jobs booking bands like The Doors, Pink Floyd, Jannis Joplin and of course Jimi fucking Hendrix, but he also pulled in the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and even turned the hippies on to B.B. King. And yes, The Grateful Dead apparently played there 51 times between ‘65 and ‘69 ( this means they played 4 songs total). Then it was over, sorta.
The neighborhood was getting nasty and the place didn’t hold that many people, so in the Summer of 1968, Graham bought a spot called the Carousel Ballroom around the corner on South Van Ness and renamed it “The Fillmore West”. Meanwhile, the original location operated under new ownership as “The New Old Fillmore.” Despite having the memorable shows by The Dead and The Stooges, this incarnation didn’t last long.
During the early 80’s, the venue took on new life with the Punk scene that was still in its infancy. Under the name “The Elite Club”, the venue hosted bands that would come to define the genre such as Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, Bad Religion, and one of my personal favorites, Social Distortion.
Sometime in the mid-80s, Bill Graham got nostalgic and reopened it, once again as The Fillmore. Sadly, the ‘89 earthquake closed the place for a while. After Graham passed away in a helicopter crash, his loved ones fulfilled his last wish of retrofitting the building and bringing it back to its former glory. It took a few years but on April 27, 1994, The Smashing Pumpkins played a surprise show followed by Primus the next night for the official re-opening.
In 2007, it was sold to Live Nation who milked the place for everything they could and opened up several other venues named after the original. That said, regardless of what they call it or who’s one stage, it’s a magical place. From the outside, it doesn’t look like much, the sign isn’t anything fancy but as soon as you walk in and up the stairs, you feel it. Take your time to wander around the place and look at the thousands of posters from the various acts that have graced the stage over the years. Because it’s small, there’s not a bad seat in the house, plus they don’t really have seats there, at least not at any show I’ve been to. The bands know they’re playing for a smaller audience of dedicated fans and the performances are intimate since performing on the stage is a rite of passage for a lot of acts.