Fillmore

The music of the Fillmore West closing concert is interspersed with a bit of documentary about Bill Graham. The music isn't reproduced too well (if I can judge by my cable-tv reception), and there is evidently a split screen that is lost (or more irritatingly, almost lost) in the video version. But Bill Graham is fascinating, there are some unjustly-forgotten musical groups such as Cold Blood, and we're reminded that once upon a time Jefferson Airplane did harmonies and Santana was a group, not a guru.

The movie could theoretically be released on DVD, if someone can be bothered to work out all the legalities of getting the footage of all the different bands cleared.

But an "expanded" edition is impossible. In one of the Grateful Dead books I have, it's said that the director had filmed entire performances by the various bands, and had always intended to make a sequel, but could never get funding to do so. He carried this footage around with him, every time he moved, but eventually reached a point during the 80's when he could no longer afford to pay for the storage fees. So he was forced to junk all of his outtake footage.

Considering so few films exist of this era, this is a must see and I too indeed hope it makes it to DVD. I am at this point searching out a VHS copy. I have the vinyl soundtrack and I enjoy hearing many of the tracks often. Real footage of the workings of a Bill Graham presentation, with the Dead, Quicksilver, Santana, etc is a unique experience.And to see Bill Graham in action. Worth the experience. He was one in a billion. Attending this particular event, most would have died and gone to heaven to be within a bongs smoke cloud whisper of the Fillmore East on this 3 day event. The closing of the Fillmore East in NYC. Luckily here in the Bay Area the Fillmore West still goes on strong.

Truth be told. I saw this as a young teenager when it came out and on PBS once a few years ago. I would love to see it again. The feeling of the era is there and the music stands up well against memory. The Hot Tuna alone is superb. All in all a long hairs dream come true and in the film Garcia, Jorma and Jack and Bill Graham all look forever young. To be there once again in film would do everyone a fine solid.

Never saw the original theatrical release, but this DVD is only 55 minutes or so. There's no Bill Graham interview stuff, he just hops on stage and introduces a few of the bands. The opening credits seem to run forever, sucking up a lot of that minuscule hour of video. Possible the most egregious (to me) error is that during Jefferson Airplane's clip, they show a ton of footage of outdoor scenes (crowds, rallies, concerts) and occasionally closeups of Grace, Paul and Marty. I suspect this was in the original film this way, and probably because the stage footage sucked but they wanted to include the Airplane.

All that's the bad news. The good news is that this DVD has two complete songs by Quicksilver (featuring plenty of guitar work by John Cipollina), most of a song by It's a Beautiful Day, two pieces by Hot Tuna, a rave-up tune by Cold Blood: all this is worth the price of the DVD. The video is extreme wide-screen, mostly split in two parts, sometimes three and sometimes overlapping montage. If you're looking for footage of old heroes, you could do worse than this.

This movie is a precious time-capsule that is, unfortunately, out of print on home video. The terrific performances from the likes of Boz Scaggs, Santana, Jefferson Airplane and particularly the Grateful Dead each at their respective peaks, would be reason enough to celebrate this film... But they almost pale in comparison to the portrait of the magnetic pioneering rock impresario Bill Graham and his immortal magical San Fransiscan rock palace, the Fillmore West.

In 1971, Graham decided the time had come to close the doors to the fabled concert hall (and it's NYC counterpart, The Fillmore East) due to what he candidly describes as the egos of the performers having run amuck. This now-rarely seen documentary gives us a glimpse into the hassles and headaches (and joy) Graham experiences while trying to put together the lineup of acts for this final week of shows at the Fillmore. Footage of Graham doing dances to accommodate the needs of this performer or meet the demands of that agent illustrate his sense of disillusionment with the "business" in fascinating detail.

While the split screen techniques applied here are derivative of the ground breaking work by Mike Wadleigh and company on the Woodstock film project, the subject matter in Fillmore is sufficient to set this movie apart from most other such films of the time. The only question remains is, who owns the rights to this film and why hasn't it been mastered in wide screen for DVD and home video yet?