"When you come to the Avalon, some of the time, you just get entertainment, but very often, you get a connection with people. Helms had the phrase "May the baby Jesus shut your mouth and open your mind” painted above the entrance, and went on to book a series of concerts that focused not just on music but an entire experience. Helms was also Joplin’s earliest supporter, and he believed in her so much that he drove to Texas to bring her back with him to San Francisco - twice.Īfter putting on a few shows with a little help from Bill Graham, Helms broke out on his own and, while working with a local commune called the Family Dog, secured permits to rent the Avalon Ballroom, a former dance hall on Sutter. Tall, bearded, and with hair to his shoulders before it was a hippie standard, Helms was a messiah-like figure with a religious view of music that he was hell-bent on preaching. It didn’t matter - they were managed by Chet Helms, who also ran the Avalon, the hall with the better sound. Those comments led to Joplin and Big Brother And The Holding Company being unofficially banned from Graham’s stage for about seven months. In 1966, when asked by the Mojo Navigator where would she would rather play - the Fillmore or the Avalon - Janis Joplin said the acoustics at the Avalon were better, and that the last time her band played the Fillmore, the audience members “weren’t really into the music” and “would walk around trying to pick each other up, sailors and all that…” The entrance to the former Avalon Ballroom. Not all those places had an impact on the music, but the ones that did have stories worth telling. “There were so many dives that popped up out of nowhere, and because the Dead had done one show there, they were the new club on the map,” Flamin’ Groovies guitarist Cyril Jordan said. Once the San Francisco Sound became mainstream, all kinds of new clubs popped up, providing gigs for groups who weren’t on that week’s bill at the Fillmore. By many accounts, the "San Francisco Sound" came from the Fillmore’s stage - and as young people came to San Francisco in droves, Graham’s shows were practically tourist attractions.īut the Fillmore wasn’t the only stage during the Summer of Love. A 1,000-capacity hall that was once a roller-skating rink, the Fillmore served as training grounds for bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Big Brother and the Holding Company. When people talk about San Francisco as the epicenter of hippie culture in 1967, Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium is invariably mentioned as the scene’s musical focal point.
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