Kryptonite, we'd love to have you and your friends there....

I'll be the on-site guide at the Fillmore/State... and am sort of the emcee who welcomes eveyone to the tours, and gives a brief history of movie palaces [[and their 3 major types) in general, and the Fillmore/State in particular. I also go into how movie palaces were among the first buildings in the world to have air conditioning [[before that most movie palaces closed during the hot summer months, or had a breezy "garden theatre" on the roof).

This year John Lauter will be our organist on the mighty 4/36 Wurlitzer organ at the Fox... a highlight of the tours. John has played the Barton Organ at the Redford Theatre, and the Fisher Organ at the Senate Theatre.

Only 4 theatres in the world are known to have had an independent lobby organ... the Moller 3/21 Organ on the mezzanine level of the Fox's 6 story Grand Lobby... is the only one still in its' original location.

Listen to the first 2 minutes of this organ piece on the Fox's mighty Wurlitzer... this really must have really blown the cobwebs out of the organ pipes!! This little recital was done from the "Slave Console" up high in the side of the balcony. A slave console [[very few theatres had the luxury of one) is a secondary keyboard console that can be played when the stage console is unavailable due to an orchestra being in the pit or some other stage limitations preventing the main console's use....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0rrR1n9l9I

And one of the highlights of the tour of the Fox is that the visitors get to see "the autograph wall"... where individual performers and/or groups have signed their personal autographs and messages. This wall is now so vast, that it has extended up the 8 stories of the dressing room staircase, and down 2 stories to the basement. The most important and valuable signatures have been protected with plexiglass. One could spend hours here studying the vast array of signatures from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson to the Rolling Stones to every other group imaginable who have graced the stage of the Fox.

Tickets are selling fast!!