The Fillmore

The Fillmore, also known as the Fillmore Auditorium, is a music venue in San Francisco, California, made famous by concert producer Bill Graham (1931-1991). It takes its name from its position at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard.

In the mid-1960s, along with the Avalon Ballroom and the Winterland Arena, it became one of the major venues for the psychedelic music scene and the hippie counterculture in general in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury area1. Artists such as Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin made their debuts there. In addition to rock, Bill Graham presented other acts such as Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Otis Redding and even hip-hop with Fort Minor, for example.

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After a few years, due to neighborhood deterioration, in July 1968 Bill Graham moved the original Fillmore to the Carousel Ballroom at Market and South Van Ness Avenue. The new venue became Fillmore West (in contrast to Graham's Fillmore East auditorium in New York).

After Bill Graham's death in a helicopter crash in 1991, his loved ones decided to fulfill his last wish and reopened the original Fillmore, which has thus once again become one of San Francisco's landmark venues with nightly shows.

In December 2011, the metal band Metallica celebrated 30 years in the business, and their debut at the Fillmore in 1981, with a week-long series of daily concerts, inviting numerous artists who had worked with or influenced them.