The Fillmore West was a historic

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm a ...

music venue in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, US which became famous under the direction of concert promoter Bill Graham from 1968 to 1971. Named after

The Fillmore The Fillmore is a historic music venue in San Francisco, California. Built in 1912 and originally named the Majestic Hall, it became the Fillmore Auditorium in 1954. It is in Western Addition, on the edge of the Fillmore District and Upper Fillm ...

at the intersection of

Fillmore Street Fillmore Street is a street in San Francisco, California which starts in the Lower Haight neighborhood and travels northward through the Fillmore District and Pacific Heights and ends in the Marina District. It serves as the main thoroughfare an ...

and

Geary Boulevard Geary Boulevard (designated as Geary Street east of Van Ness Avenue) is a major east–west thoroughfare in San Francisco, California, United States, beginning downtown at Market Street near Market Street's intersection with Kearny Street, an ...

(which was Graham's principal venue from 1966 to 1968), it stood at the southwest corner of

Market Street Market Street may refer to: *Market Street, Cambridge, England *Market Street, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia * Market Street, George Town, Penang, Malaysia *Market Street, Manchester, England *Market Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ...

and South

Van Ness Avenue Van Ness Avenue is a north–south thoroughfare in San Francisco, California. Originally named Marlette Street, the street was renamed Van Ness Avenue in honor of the city's sixth mayor, James Van Ness. The main part of Van Ness Avenue runs fro ...

in the

Civic Center A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building. Recently, the ...

district. In June 2018, the top two floors of the building reopened as SVN West, a new concert and corporate event venue.

History

Originally, the El Patio Ballroom, later the Carousel Ballroom, it was a swing-era dance palace, located at 1545 Market street, on the second floor, above the street-level retail at 10 South Van Ness Avenue. Beginning in 1968, it was briefly operated by a collective formed by the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane,

Quicksilver Messenger Service Quicksilver Messenger Service is an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco. The band achieved wide popularity in the San Francisco Bay Area and, through their recordings, with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe, ...

and

Big Brother and the Holding Company Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After som ...

as a social/musical "laboratory experiment". According to critic Joel Selvin, the "six-month run may well have corresponded with the height of the whole '60s

Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture ...

/San Francisco thing." Due to various reasons (including the socioeconomic deterioration of the Fillmore District, the modest capacity of The Fillmore, and financial difficulties faced by the collective), Bill Graham moved his prime concert location in July 1968 to this larger venue, one and a half miles from the original Fillmore at 1805

. He called this venue the Fillmore West (in contrast with Graham's

Fillmore East The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the (at the time) Lower East Side neighborhood, now called the East Village neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan of New York City. I ...

auditorium in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Events

The Celestial Synapse was a musical event held at the Fillmore West on the evening of 19 February 1969. At least 3,000 people attended the event, hosted by the Frontiers of Science Fellowship. The performance began with a Tibetan Buddhist monk playing Tibetan gongs, and Grateful Dead played a set. The Grateful Dead were among the regulars at the Fillmore West, playing 64 concerts (including 18 under the name of the Carousel Ballroom) from 1968 to 1971.

Closing

After three years, Graham closed the Fillmore West on July 4, 1971, with five nights of shows featuring such San Francisco bands as Santana, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Grateful Dead and

(who headlined the final performance at the venue) and a poetry reading from

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

. A documentary film of the last several concerts, called '' Fillmore'', and a three-disc album, called '' Fillmore: The Last Days'', were released in 1972.

SVN West

After housing a

Honda is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a producti ...

car dealership for many years, the venue reverted to a music venue and event space called SVN West. Its first concert, a benefit, was held on June 14, 2018.

References

External links

Fillmore San Francisco official website

Carousel Ballroom
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Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fillmore, The 1960s in San Francisco 1970s in San Francisco Civic Center, San Francisco Defunct nightclubs in California Former music venues in California Hippie movement Music venues in San Francisco Rock music venues