Fillmore East

Overview

Bill Graham's East Village rock theater ('The Church of Rock and Roll') open March 1968 to June 1971, where Hendrix recorded 'Band of Gypsys,' the Allman Brothers made their name, and the Grateful Dead played dozens of times.

The Fillmore East occupied a former Yiddish theater at 105 Second Avenue designed in 1925–26 by Harrison Wiseman in the Medieval Revival style, in the heart of what had been the 'Jewish Rialto' of Second Avenue: a strip of Yiddish theaters, cafes, and music halls that stretched from Houston Street northward and defined the Lower East Side's cultural life from the 1880s through the 1950s. Bill Graham, who also operated the Fillmore Auditorium and Fillmore West in San Francisco, leased the building and opened the room on March 8, 1968, with Big Brother and the Holding Company (Janis Joplin), Tim Buckley, and Albert King on the inaugural bill. Seating approximately 2,700 on the orchestra and balcony levels, the room became Graham's East Coast anchor for treating rock music as concert music worthy of professional theatrical presentation. Graham hired production designer Chip Monck, a veteran of the Newport Jazz Festival who would go on to design the stage presentation at Woodstock, to oversee sound and lighting, achieving an acoustic and visual standard that was exceptional for the era. The booking policy was triple bills, two shows per night, several nights a week: headliner and two supporting acts, mixing established figures with emerging ones. The room was nicknamed 'The Church of Rock and Roll.' The Allman Brothers Band performed at the Fillmore East often enough to be described as its house band. Their March 12–13, 1971 performances (recorded live and released as 'At Fillmore East' in July 1971) are among the most celebrated live albums in rock history: Duane Allman and Dickey Betts's extended twin-guitar improvisations on 'Whipping Post' and 'In Memory of Elizabeth Reed' became a template for the extended-improvisation strain of Southern rock. The Grateful Dead performed at the Fillmore East roughly forty times between June 1968 and April 1971, closing their run there on April 29, 1971; published counts differ, with 38 the figure most often cited. Over New Year's 1969–70, Jimi Hendrix debuted his new trio Band of Gypsys with Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums, playing four sets across December 31, 1969 and January 1, 1970; recordings from those nights were released as the album 'Band of Gypsys' in April 1970, the last album Hendrix released in his lifetime. Other artists who gave defining Fillmore East performances include Jefferson Airplane, The Who (performing 'Tommy' across six nights, October 20–25, 1969), Led Zeppelin, Joe Cocker, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Janis Joplin, Van Morrison, Miles Davis, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, and Ten Years After. Graham closed the Fillmore East on June 27, 1971, with a three-night closing run headlined by the Allman Brothers Band; the final evening also featured Country Joe McDonald, Mountain, and the Beach Boys. In his closing remarks Graham cited rising costs, changes in the music industry, and his sense that the moment for the Fillmore format had passed. The building subsequently housed a movie theater, a roller rink, and other uses before reopening in 1980 as The Saint, a gay men's disco that operated until 1988, linking the building to a wholly different chapter of New York nightlife. The building was razed in 1996. Its Second Avenue lobby survives as an Apple Bank for Savings branch; the former auditorium site is occupied by the Hudson East apartment building.