The Fillmore

The Fillmore at the corner of Fillmore and Geary in San Francisco, a plain brick building with a red awning that undersells what happened upstairs. Charles Sullivan had already brought Duke Ellington and Count Basie to this ballroom in the 1950s before rock arrived. On December 10, 1965, Bill Graham booked a benefit here with Jefferson Airplane topping the bill and the newly named Grateful Dead below them, and the psychedelic San Francisco sound had its home. The ballroom is still mid-sized and standing-room, so even a band you half know feels like a discovery here.