DVD Review

If the Woodstock feature length film was a worthy document of the peace and love generation at the peak of their powers, Fillmore: The Last Days is an apt tombstone for the death of a movement.

Filmed from June 30th to July 4th, 1972, the movie chronicles the final shows at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, CA. The venue’s owner, Bill Graham, who also ran the New York location, is as much a part of this movie as the bands showcased. Graham was a notorious promoter, and in this film the audience gets an unprecedented glimpse at his on-the-job antics, most notably his intense mood-swings. To his allies he comes across as a likable jokester, always aiming to keep a crowd entertained, but to his enemies he could be a demanding, hard-as-nails businessman. I guess guys like this were bound to get involved with rock and roll once the money started rolling in, but it’s certainly a bummer to watch the sixties crash and burn on film.

Looking back on these performances, most of the bands seem to be clinging on to an era that had long since passed. It’s be akin to watching footage from a hair metal festival shot in 1994. In short, the musicians were still hippies when the country, and even the music scene in general, had long since moved on. Of course it was San Francisco, so there is a bit of a built-in excuse there. Jefferson Airplane’s segment is almost comical in how it seems to balance bohemian ethos within the confines of a public service announcement. It is very cheesy, and makes their transition into Jefferson Starship in the 80’s make much more sense. Other flower power overdoses in the film include Quicksilver Messenger Service and It’s a Beautiful Day – two lesser known acts from the era.

In a surprisingly peppy performance, The Grateful Dead deliver what is probably the best set of songs in the film with the combo of “Casey Jones” and “Johnny B. Goode.” There’s also a little gem of an audio grab where Graham speaks on camera about Jerry Garcia. He states that the Dead vocalist/guitarist is the “big papa bear of what rock music should have been.” Obviously Graham, who died in a helicopter crash in 1991, did live to see Garcia become just that. And it is cool to watch the Dead playing in the early 70’s. They come across as a lively bar band as opposed to aged stadium rockers. Garcia looks light years younger – as if the lifestyle had yet to catch up to him in such a debilitating fashion. And even though I’ve heard plenty of better versions of “Johnny B. Goode,” it’s nice to see these guys kicking down some old school rock and watching Garcia grinning as he takes the solos.

The big band at the time of these shows was apparently Santana. Throughout the film Graham is caught on camera feuding with their management. Apparently negotiations were quite tough, but in the end they came around. What can I say…Santana sounds like Santana. In the 37 years since they played this gig I can’t say their sound has changed much. They seem to be a perfect fit for San Francisco in that era, and the logical extension of how the hippy bands could adapt to the mainstream. Carlos Santana continues to perfect that formula to this day.

Early in the film Graham talks at length about how his dream in life was to be a character actor. When he arrived in San Francisco in the early 60’s he even performed in a theater troupe. In his liner notes, Ben Fong-Torres talks about how Graham’s abilities as an actor are revealed in his phone conversations, even more so, in my opinion, during a hostile confrontation with a local musician who Graham seemingly decides to go off on when he remembers the cameras are rolling. As he moved into the rock and roll spectrum he seemed to combine this ability to perform with a desire to make money, and to work with bands he truly believed in. It’s just that in a perfect utopia, all of these elements can’t exist in unison. Throughout the movie Graham moans and groans about how the times have changed. Well, all he needed to do was take a look in a mirror to see that unfolding.

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