Rock: San Francisco Ballrooms

The Avalon Ballroom, the Fillmore Auditorium, Fillmore West, and Winterland: these four venues ushered in the modern era of rock show presentation and grew out of the hippie counterculture of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. The first multiband rock show was held at the Ark in Sausalito in 1965 and proved so successful that the presenters incorporated their commune as the Family Dog shortly thereafter. Later that year a pair of rock concert benefit shows for the radical San Francisco Mime Troupe were organized by the troupe’s manager, Bill Graham. The first was held at the Calliope Ballroom on Howard Street and the second at the Fillmore Auditorium, a stylish ballroom at Geary and Fillmore streets on the outskirts of the city’s black community. Inspired by the shows’ success, Graham decided to go into the concert-promotion business, setting up operations at the Fillmore.

At first Graham and the Family Dog shared the Fillmore, booking alternating weeks. Later Chet Helms, the Dog’s booker, rented the Avalon Ballroom at 1268 Sutter, near the corner of Van Ness, and put it under the management of Bob Simmons, who had started the “underground rock” programming on KMPX-FM with Tom Donahue. Graham, noted for his abrasive personality and hard-nosed business sense, proved to be far more successful than the Family Dog, which fell into disarray and moved its operations to Denver, Colorado.

In 1968 Graham also took over a larger and more central venue, the Carousel Ballroom, at the corner of Market and Van Ness. He renamed it the Fillmore West (so called because he had expanded his company, Bill Graham Presents, to New York City, where he operated the Fillmore East). When Graham closed the Fillmore West in 1971, he shifted operations to Winterland—a disused ice-skating rink at the corner of Steiner and Post streets—which he continued to use as his main small venue until urban renewal dictated its demolition in 1982. Winterland was the site of many significant rock events, not the least of which was the last live performance by the original members of the Band in 1976 (captured in the film The Last Waltz).

The formula for shows at these venues called for three bands per evening, originally playing two sets apiece. Graham often mixed genres in hopes of opening up his audiences’ knowledge of music, whereas the Family Dog stuck mostly to its own favourite bands. Graham went on to become the most successful concert promoter in the United States, later moving into management (Santana, Journey, and other bands), merchandising (Winterland Productions was the first company to see the sales potential in official band-related T-shirts and other paraphernalia), and film production.