THE FILLMORE

There is no way to talk about 1968, unless I can bring the music to you.

The Fillmore was the invention of a guy named Bill Graham. I’m not sure what his background was, but he brought the sound track of the 60’s into being.

One thing I remember is, Bill Graham handing out apples at the door, and handing them to people when they walked in. Funny memory, kind of strange. That that image should just popped into my mind, out of nowhere!

These were the music events I went to that year: Big Brother and the Holding Company lead by a wailing, Janice Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, with his wild and otherworldly guitar licks. I was at the Fillmore. for the opening concert of the Jefferson Airplane, who had just recorded their first hit album, Surrealistic Pillow.

This was the sound track of my clan. We sang to it, we took drugs to it and we made love to it. It became a thread that connected us all through that special alchemy that comes from a secret, that only we were the holders of.

There were no strangers, we were all having the same experience, at the same time. The music was a bright silver thread, that tied us, like a cosmic umbilical cord, which connected us, and where we all floated, in a warm psychedelic womb.

The Janis concert was huge. I had never been in a room with that many people, in my entire life. From the balcony of the Fillmore, I could see this rolling mass of bodies, that moved, danced and swayed, not only to the music on the stage but to the music in their brains, which were fueled, by pot, psychedelics and other substances.

There was always the light show that formed the backdrop, on all the concerts. It was a fluid, melting mass, that was made from paint or food coloring. It was streamed around on some sort of glass surface that had oil on it, and was somehow projected, onto the stage below.

The music, the pot smoke, incense, and the pungent smell of bodies, was all happening in one huge mass. It looked like a round, rolling snake ball, that roiled on the floor below me. It was fascinating and yet somehow horrible, in it’s movement and mass. I was very aware that I was in a situation that was labile and could go any direction, any direction at all.

For Big Brother and Janice, I took a very small amount of acid, just before we went to the concert. San Francisco was about an hour and a half from Boulder Creek, and by the time we got to the City-I WAS FLYING!

I remember, being in the the balcony, when I started feeling woozy and then I just fainted, fainted dead away. My friends told me my body never hit the ground. I was simply lifted atop the people, by the hands and arms of those that were standing around me. I was passed across the the top of the crowd, face up, arms and legs dangling, until I was gently laid on the floor behind them. The party continued. In fact, I don’t think it ever missed a beat.

We drove home that night, in the little VW bug that transported the five of us into the City It was now, a rainbow clown car with a psychedelic driver and four very trashed passengers.

I have no clue how we ever got back home from these adventures. The LSD angels, is my best guess.

But something was niggling around in my mind. My mind was like a tongue, a tongue that was feeling around in an empty socket, examining the place, where a tooth had once rested. I kept trying to remember. What I had started to think about, just before the party had resumed.

I started to hear murmurings and whispering’s of something in the air. It was something, that would change us all and the love fest would be over by 1970.

Vietnam was coming, and it was going to kick the shit out of everything.

More to follow…