The Fillmore’s MC5 blow-up was triggered by ticket allocation disputes

Evidence

Having rented the hall for the night, the band’s new record label Elektra distributed 2,300 free tickets as part of a radio promotion—leaving less than the 500 that the Motherfuckers had demanded for the Community. These evidently sat in the theater manager’s draw until at the last minute and under pressure, they were sent over to the Common Ground. The Fillmore also agreed to allow standbys fill the empty seats. Thus, scores of people were clamoring to get inside the theater when the opening act, Peel and his band the Lower East Side, began performing. Bill Graham attempted to bar the door and a kid with a bicycle chain broke his nose. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1346

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader thesis about scenes becoming markets: the label’s free-ticket radio promo versus the Motherfuckers’ community demands is exactly the material collision this book tracks.