March 8, 1968: Fillmore East Opens
On March 8, 1968, Fillmore East opened its doors with the first of two shows featuring rockers Big Brother & the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, folk singer Tim Buckley and blues guitarist Albert King.
San Francisco promoter Bill Graham had taken over the Village Theater at 105 Second Avenue the previous year. It had seen better days: opened in 1926 as the Commodore Theater, the playhouse was one of many along Second Avenue, the “Jewish Rialto” where the greats of the Yiddish stage performed.
The Loews Corporation later operated the Commodore as a movie theater until it became the Village Theater, which revived its history of live music and comedy but eventually operated in a state of disrepair and soon closed.
By 1967, Graham had successfully launched the Fillmore Auditorium and later the Fillmore West: San Francisco venues where blues, jazz and roots musicians shared the bill with the leading rockers of the era. In a run that lasted just over three years, the Fillmore’s East Village outpost presented rock royalty: Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, James Taylor and Eric Clapton.
Graham long maintained that the Woodstock Festival dramatically changed the rock concert industry. As performers’ fees skyrocketed, only arenas and stadiums could afford to book the rock stars of the 1970s. Admittedly…
