When Santana, Jerry Garcia, and Others Played Gibsons on the Fillmore Stage

Ted Drozdowski | 06.24.2009

Long before the Fillmore was a nation-wide chain of music venues, it was a pair of history-making concert halls run by the rock impresario Bill Graham in New York City and San Francisco. The Bay City’s Fillmore was where the area’s rock royalty preened before their loyal subjects, developing the West Coast’s psychedelic ’60s sound.

Graham dubbed the hall Fillmore West, to distinguish it from Manhattan’s Fillmore East, and from the mid-’60s until its closing in 1971 the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana developed their approach there under the throbbing glow of liquid light shows. And the impressive list of out-of-towners who headlined include Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, the Who, Cream, and the Doors.

Fillmore: The Last Days, a long out-of-print documentary film about the special shows that preceded the venue’s closing, has just been reissued by the retro-conscious Rhino label. It provides a glimpse at the complex Graham, who died in a helicopter wreck in 1991, and a stage-level view of some of the era’s greatest Bay Area bands, which frequently made rock history with Gibsons slung around their shoulders.

The film’s headliner — and the final group to play on the original Fillmore West stage — is Santana. Filmmaker Richard T. Heffron captures the band at an improvisational peak in an incendiary version of Miles Davis’ “In a Silent Way” that features leader Carlos Santana pushing hard into modal territory on a sunburst Les Paul and second guitarist Neal Schon — before his Journey days — impressively wielding a Gold Top. By the time of the filming Santana had recorded many shows at the Fillmore, nearly from his band’s inception, which have surfaced on various albums over the years.



Similarly impressive and far bluesier is John Cipollina’s performance with Quicksilver Messenger Service. He plays an SG that seems to be an earlier version of his heavily customized model on display at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, teasing the six-string into a breathy, elegant, and epic solo on the band’s “Fresh Air”.

Other cool Gibsons on the stage include an SG style bass in the hands of Cold Blood bassist Rob Ellicott, a Gold Top in the instrument arsenal of San Francisco’s Lamb, and Elvin Bishop’s trademark red ES-345 getting a beating from its owner on a hammering and wailing “The Sky is Crying” on his.

Another highlight: Jerry Garcia in great, youthful form leading the Grateful Dead through the band’s timeless “Casey Jones” on his chiming Les Paul Junior with double cutaways and P-90 pickups. And the DVD’s bonus for guitar fans is a backstage conversation with Bill Graham and Michael Bloomfield, where Graham tells a story about the guitar legend hiding from his mother backstage at the Fillmore. All of which makes Fillmore: The Last Days a must for any serious classic rock fan’s collection.