The Starbucksification of the Fillmore?

Is San Francisco's legendary Fillmore Auditorium, which helped launch Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, fated to be as synonymous with concert venues as Starbucks is with coffee bars?

Live Nation, the world's largest concert promoter and a Clear Channel spinoff, is rapidly remodeling midsized concert venues across the country into the image of the San Francisco Fillmore, complete with dark red walls, crystal chandeliers, and barrels of free apples.

The original Fillmore, once owned and operated by concert promoter Bill Graham, was host to rock and roll's psychedelic era and later punk rock and continues to operate today. Graham originally tried to expand by opening a Fillmore East in Manhattan's East Village in 1968 but had to close it down in 1971.

^{Then and Now: The Grateful Dead playing in the original Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco in 1967. This summer, the singer Fergie performed at a party at the Fillmore Detroit, one of a chain of Fillmore clubs opening around the country. Photographs by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images (top) and Bill Pugliano/Getty Images (bottom).}

Live Nation, the Fillmore's current owners, have expanded the brand by remodeling concert halls in Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, and Miami Beach. It plans to open another in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 2009 or 2010 where a JC Penney once stood. Several more Fillmores are expected to open in the coming years, a Live Nation spokesman said.

"I don't think we mass produce concerts like Starbucks mass produces coffee," says Bruce Eskowitz, Live Nation president and chief executive for North American concerts. "The Fillmore has been the link with some of the greatest artists in the world who provide the best music for their fans."

There are now six Fillmores, including the original in San Francisco and the Fillmore Auditorium opened in 1999 in Denver. Live Nation also owns the 11 House of Blues—a 1,000 to 1,500 capacity concert venue in no way in market competition with the 2,000 to 4,000 capacity range of the Fillmores.

Many of the concert halls Live Nation took over have a history of their own, including Detroit's State Theater, New York's Irving Plaza, and the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami Beach.

The Florida venue was where Gleason taped his TV variety shows featuring entertainment legends like Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope. Tonight, Ricky Martin will open the club, now called the Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackie Gleason Theater.

Live Nation spent $3.5 million putting the Fillmore touches onto the Gleason Theater, which included a new marquee, five chandeliers, a greeter at the door to talk about upcoming shows, barrels of apples, new curtains, new lights, a new sound system, a new concession area, and revamped dressing rooms with plasma televisions to let performers see the stage.

"We even brought on the San Francisco team to oversee the remodeling of the new venues to keep it as authentic as possible," says Eskowitz. "Many of these buildings have great histories. But over a period of a couple of years people will call it the Fillmore."

Performers have noted increased professionalism, better sound quality, and tighter security at the Fillmore-ized venues. But the patrons are the same, they added.

"It doesn't make much of a difference if it's Irving Plaza or Fillmore, the crowd is responding to you the same way," said Pedro Erazo of Gogol Bordello. That popular New York band sold out several shows in what is now called the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza.

Also in the market of expansion, the CBGB that closed down last October in New York's Bowery following a rent dispute will reopen in Las Vegas in the next couple of years.

The founder, Hilly Kristal, gutted CBGB of its bar, walls, even urinals before he ied on August 28. He planned to move it all to a new venue in the older section of the Las Vega Strip, which he compared to the East Village. Brett Green, an attorney for CBGB, wrote in an email that a location for the Las Vegas CBGB's reopening should be finalized in 2008 or 2009.

by Andrea Chalupa