Thank You and Farewell - The Closing of the Fillmore East, Fillmore East, New York City, 6-27-1971, Part 7: The Allman Brothers Band

Here's the seventh and last part of the closing of the Fillmore East in New York City in 1971, featuring the Allman Brothers Band. I was a bit reluctant to post this, because it's the only portion of the concert that has been officially released. But I ultimately decided to post it for completeness's sake. 

The version of "One Way Out" here is actually the version that appeared on the band's "Eat a Peach" album in 1972. (Other live songs on that come from earlier concerts.) Then, when the deluxe version of "Eat a Peach" was released in 2008, the entire show was included as a bonus disc. The whole show was also included on the 2014 box set "The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings."

The farewell concerts to the Fillmore East actually took place over three days, but only the final night was broadcast live on the radio, so that's the only night where we have excellent recordings. Promoter Bill Graham, who controlled the Fillmore East, considered the Allman Brothers Band his favorite musical act. So he had them as the final act for all three nights.

Unfortunately, while this set by the band was certainly excellent, it sounds like the band's set from the night before was even better, and much longer. It's considered a kind of lost holy grail for fans of the band, but no recording of it has ever emerged. According to different accounts, the band played for anything between four to seven hours!

Band member Dickey Betts later said of the concert on June 26th (the night before this one), "That was a special show. We played until daylight that morning. I remember it was dark in there, and when they opened the door, the sun about knocked us down. We didn't realize we had played until seven, eight o'clock in the morning. Bill Graham just let us rattle, and nobody said, 'We gotta cut the time.' It was just a really free kind of thing."

Band member Butch Trucks added, "We played for roughly seven straight hours with everything we had. We played a three-hour set and then came back out. The feeling from the audience, not necessarily the volume, but the feeling was just so overwhelming that I just started crying. Then we got into a jam … that lasted for four straight hours. Non-stop. And when we finished, there was no applause whatsoever. The place was deathly quiet. Someone got up and opened the doors, the sun came pouring in, and you could see this whole audience with a big shit-eating grin on their face, nobody moving until finally they got up and started quietly leaving the place. I remember Duane [Allman] walking in front of me, dragging his guitar while I was just sitting there completely burned, and he said, ‘Damn, it’s just like leaving church.'"

Trucks added, "The next night, Bill [Graham] came running over, grabbed me around the neck so hard it hurt, and said, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you, for that show. It made all the years of crap I had to put up with worth it.' And I'll never forget what he said next: 'If I had my way, when you finished this morning, I would be sealed up in my bubble and gone off to wherever I’m going.'" 

So yeah, too bad we don't have THAT recording. But this one certainly is nothing to be ashamed of. Consider that the band liked it enough to include the whole thing on the deluxe version of "Eat a Peach," when there were other 1971 soundboard recordings they could have put there instead (with some of them eventually being released later). But I read the band was tired from the night before, and they felt the audience was tired too, so they chose to keep their set short and sweet, by their relative standards.

It's also worth noting that Graham gave the band an unusually prolonged and heartfelt introduction. That included the comment, "In all my life, I've never heard the kind of music that this group plays. The finest contemporary music. We're going to round it off with the best of them all – the Allman Brothers." 

Band member Gregg Allman later commented, "That was special. I'd heard a rumor before that Bill had said of all the bands he'd ever worked with, we were his favorites, but I hadn't believed it. So when I heard him say that with my own two ears, I was elated."

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

63 talk by Bill Graham (Allman Brothers Band)
64 Statesboro Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
65 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
66 Don't Keep Me Wonderin' (Allman Brothers Band)
67 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
68 Done Somebody Wrong (Allman Brothers Band)
69 One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band)
70 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
71 Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band)
72 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
73 Hot 'Lanta [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
74 Whipping Post (Allman Brothers Band)
75 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
76 You Don't Love Me (Allman Brothers Band) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376045/VA-ThnkYounFrwll197107AllmnBrthrsBnd.zip.html

The cover photo of the band's slide guitarist Duane Allman comes from this exact concert. This one, along with the photo I used for the Albert King set, were the only two good ones I could find that were actually in color. So that's why I used a photo that only shows Duane, because this was what was available.