The Who Fillmore East concert program 5/16-18/69

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The events described below are the memories of a teen amonth shy of his 16 th birthday, as he witnessed them in the frontrow at the Fillmore. Those with better memories may quibble about a detail or two. However, it's my story and I'm sticking to it.T was a palpable buzz in the old auditorium on 2 nd Ave. and 6 th St. in Manhattan's East Village, home of the Fillmore East, as the audience took their seats for the early show (8:00 P.M.) on Friday, May 16, 1969, the day (give or take a day or two) on which their groundbreaking rock opera "Tommy" was released in the United States. In retrospect, this was a seminal moment in The Who's career because it signified the beginning of the long-awaited breakthrough in the American market. Prior to Tommy, though The Who had an incredibly loyal, almost cult-like following in the U.S., the band had not yet appealed to the U.S. on a mass market scale. That all changed with Tommy's release and subsequent critical and public acclaim. Tommy was officially issued in the U.S. on Saturday, May 17, 1969 (although my faulty memory is that the L.P. was in stores and played on the radio, already on Friday, May 16, 1969, the day of the show, if not a day or two earlier). Succeeding in the U.S. on a mass scale was extremely important to the band and so it was planned that the band would introduce Tommy to the U.S., beginning with four live shows at the Fillmore East on the weekend of May 15-16, 1969, to coincide with the release of the L.P. in the U.S.Had this been the entire reason for the significance of these live shows, the concert program would have been valuable enough for collectors. But the happenings of that Friday night of May 16, 1969 almost overshadowed Tommy's live debut and only added aura and mystique to the Who's reputation as a band whose live shows were both unpredictable and unforgettable.About an hour into the show, shortly after they finished playing the "Tommy" portion of the show, Bill Graham came on stage and whispered something in the ears of the band members and the band then launched into their next number, "Summertime Blues. " Suddenly a man in civilian clothing ran from stage right across the stage. Pete Townshend, who treated the stage as a holy temple, must have viewed this as an invasion of the Holy of Holies and kicked the man in the groin. The man was taken off the stage and The Who finished performing the song. Bill Graham then took the microphone and announced very calmly that a fire had broken out across the street but that t was no danger to the crowd inside the auditorium if the crowd would exit the hall in an orderly fashion through the fire exits.The back of the Fillmore East had filled up with smoke during the above-described events. But thanks to Bill Graham's handling of the matter, t was no panic nor injuries sustained during the entire incident. The crowd vacated the hall quietly and then watched in the street as fire trucks put out the fire in the adjacent building. (Bill Graham had intentionally bent the truth by saying the fire was across the street so that the crowd would be less apt to panic.) The man who had come on stage and been kicked by Pete was by now wearing a badge. From the eventual reconstruction of the events through newspaper stories (see Daily New article), it seems that the man who tried to grab the microphone from Pete was a fire marshal or policeman. He probably wanted the mike to notify the audience of the fire and clear out the hall. Who knows if he would have done as effective a job in this as Bill Graham did. We'll never know if panic would have spread, had he been given the opportunity to cry "fire" in the sold out hall.As to be expected, the late show that Friday night was canceled and the crowd went home not knowing if the Saturday shows would go on as scheduled the next day and whether or not the Friday 11:30 show would be rescheduled. When ticket holders arrived for the Saturday shows, fliers were distributed (see a copy of the flier) annou... read more

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