New Year’s Eve 1968 at Fillmore East: 'I Got Out of It Without Getting Killed'
- edgarstreetbooks
- Dec 29, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 31, 2025
'Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever' Book Excerpt
Frank Mastropolo
New Year’s Eve was always an important night for promoter and impresario Bill Graham. It was celebrated in grand style at San Francisco’s Fillmore West and New York’s Fillmore East.
In this excerpt from the book Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever, we look back at Dec. 31, 1968, when the Chambers Brothers headlined the show at the East Village hall.
Joshua White, founder of the Joshua Light Show; Jerry Pompili, House Manager; and usher James Sullivan recall the highlights and lowlights of the night.
Jerry Pompili: My first weekend as house manager, which was September 1968, it was a Chambers Brothers show. I’m doing my thing, I’m in the back of the orchestra in the lobby. And there’s these three guys. And I just knowthey snuck in somewhere.
I walk up to them and I say, “Can I see your ticket stubs, guys?” They hem and haw a little bit, reach in their pocket, and the biggest one, he was in the middle, hauls off and coldcocks me, must have knocked me three rows into the orchestra. Well, a bunch of ushers came over and we jumped on them and got them down and we ended up throwing them out.
And we find out they’re these three guys from Brooklyn whose families are totally connected. And they’ve been doing this shit all over town.
Joshua White: New Year’s Eve was another Fillmore tradition that passed on from the Coast. I remember one year that toy noisemakers were placed on every seat. I’m sure this idea worked well in a packed, overcrowded ballroom, but not so much for a theater. I think that they dropped the idea after one show as the audience tended to overuse the noisemakers.
James Sullivan: The Chambers Brothers played New Year’s Eve of 1968. As it was approaching midnight, they started playing the song “Time Has Come Today.” And in the middle of the song, he’s hitting the cowbell, tick-tock, tick-tock, and every once in a while they go, “Time!” It builds up, it builds up, and right at the stroke of midnight, they came roaring back in full tilt with the band.
And the Joshua Light Show was in sync with the countdown clock. There was actually a countdown clock on the light show, so it was cool. It was a neat way to bring in the New Year.
Joshua White: Because we were doing two shows a night, the countdown moment was tricky to bring off. My proudest moment was figuring out in 1969 technology how to project a real clock on the screen. You will find my solution immortalized forever on the great Hendrix New Year’s Eve 1970 poster.
Jerry Pompili: That New Year’s Eve show with the Chambers Brothers was the next time that the Chambers Brothers played. And at one point, the Chambers Brothers were on stage and some people — we didn’t mind people standing up and dancing in their seats but we had to keep them out of the aisles. And some guys got into the aisles.
So I come down to the front of the orchestra and it’s the three guys from Brooklyn. I grab one of them who’s in the aisle and say, “Come on, get out of the aisle,” and the other one grabs me from behind and puts a chokehold on me with a fuckin’ umbrella.
It was the second time with these three. Luckily, I had a good crew and they all came over and I got out of it without getting killed.
Frank Mastropolo is the author of Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.
Comments