Submitted by UAR-mwfree on Aug 11
Fillmore / The Last Days box set cover

 

Fillmore / The Last Days (Various Artists) (1971):  The Fillmore concert venues were the brainchild of San Francisco rock promoter Bill Graham beginning in the mid-1960’s.  Besides the original Fillmore Auditorium, there were also Fillmore West in San Francisco and Fillmore East in New York City; both were active from 1968 to 1971.  As the Fillmore facilities were being shut down, Bill Graham arranged for a series of farewell concerts to be performed there, often with rock bands and artists who had played there in earlier years.  A film of these concerts came out in 1971, called Fillmore.  Fillmore / The Last Days is a three-album box set also taken from these concerts that had a large booklet and several souvenirs, such as sample tickets that were created with a reduced copy of the poster for the show in an attempt to prevent counterfeiting.  Bands and artists performing on these albums include the Grateful Dead, Santana, Hot Tuna, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Tower of Power, Boz Scaggs, and Elvin Bishop GroupIt’s a Beautiful Day performs a live version of their lovely psychedelic song “White Bird”.  I clearly remember seeing a clip of a performance by a woman singing Janis-Joplin–style in a flowing brown dress in the movie trailers for Fillmore, and I looked forward to seeing the whole performance in the movie.  But it wasn’t in the movie, and it also wasn’t in this box set.  Lamb (the last band listed on the cover) might have included that woman, but it was a much livelier song that I saw on the trailer than the one in Fillmore / The Last Days.  I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of that.