Fillmore

1972's FILLMORE alternates among some colorful performances - the bands who played The Fillmore West venue in San Francisco during its final shows and the guy who organized the event and ran the place, promoter extraordinaire Bill Graham.  What a character.  A natural for the camera.  Francis Ford Coppola agreed, giving him a role as an emcee in APOCALYPSE NOW some years later.   By then he had also closed his beloved Fillmore East in NYC, knowing the party couldn't continue forever, seeing the changes in the music industry, which increasingly favored stadiums and arenas.

In director Richard T. Heffron's documentary, Graham is seen sweating the line-up for the final week of shows, which concluded on on July 4th, 1971.  The talent isn't always cooperative.  Boz Scaggs keeps changing his mind about performing.   Santana wants a specific lighting design for the stage and are worried that a bootleg album will be recorded.  The Grateful Dead are introduced as longtime friends, but there's certainly some weariness in Graham's voice.   He knows these musicians, all from the Bay area and selected for this finale for that reason, are his raison d'etre. The very reason for this party. 

Graham is mostly seen on the telephone, firing f-bombs.  He also throws a young punk, angry that Graham hasn't hired him, out of his building.  The impresario comes across as supremely confident, but also a serious douche at times.  One quote that certainly won't win him any admirers - "If you're stuck on an island with a woman with a ring on her finger, would you rape her after the eleventh day? I would!"  

The concert footage is mostly very good.  I wasn't familiar with the groups Lamb or Cool Blood, but the vocalists are strong and the vibe fits with their more well known counterparts like Hot Tuna and Quicksilver Messenger Service.  The Dead and Santana are seen toward the end and just smoke.  The former does a great cover of "Johnny B. Goode."  FILLMORE utilizes split screen effectively, a device immortalized by WOODSTOCK a few years earlier. 

Maybe the best moments are when Graham pauses from his profanity to offer an assessment of the Haight-Ashbury scene, how the hippie movement failed.  Fascinating stuff.  I also like the final image of Graham walking across the Fillmore West stage, now strewn with debris, after the party ended.