↪ The Experience are invited to the BBC Studios to perform “Hey Joe” live on the program Parade Of The Pops. Set List: Hey Joe
↪ The Experience attend a press reception for Soft Machine. The reception was hosted by Chas Chandler who produced the band’s first single “Live Makes Sweet Music,” which was just recently released.
↪ London NW1, The Roundhouse, Chalkfarm Road, England, JHE.
Concert between 19:30 and 24:00 (60 minutes)
Support: Soft Machine; The Flies; Sandy & Hilary
Photographed (backstage) by Graham Howe.
Songs: unknown
Noel: “Awful - died a death. Horrible place. Jimi had his white guitar stolen”.
🈂️ 1968.
↪ Buck Walmsley interviews Jimi for the Chicago Daily News. The interview is published two days later.
↪ Electric Factory, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA. Second Show.
A story by Angus MacDonald:
“It is 1968; I'm 16 years old, homeless, and fast asleep while Jimi Hendrix is playing less than 20 feet in front of me. How I ended up here began when I decided to runaway from home and become a hippie. I snuck out on a frigid winter morning with about six dollars in my pocket and just the clothes on my back, and hitchhiked to Greenwich Village.
New York City was pretty scary for a kid alone on the streets, so later when I happened to meet up with a young army deserter and he invited me to hitchhike with him to Philadelphia, that sounded like a fine idea. As soon as we arrived we found a place to crash with a group of other kids that were squatting in a condemned building. Everybody was expected to contribute to the house and among the duties that were required was to steal early morning food deliveries from restaurants and panhandle for spare change.
One day when I heard that Jimi Hendrix was going to be playing at a club called the Electric Factory I thought that would probably be a great place to solicit money. But after several hours of standing outside in the cold and not having much success, I was about to give up, when out of the blue, the girl, who was working the door, took sympathy on me and motioned me over to ask if I wanted to see the show. I may have been young and stupid but not so much that I didn't know that if a beautiful girl asks if you want to see a Jimi Hendrix concert for free you should say yes. So she painted a fluorescent flower on my face and let me in.
Once inside the club, which was only about three quarters full, I saw that across the small room, set up along one wall, instead of chairs, were a row of planks positioned at a perfect angle, so that you weren't really standing, but were leaning back just enough for an excellent view. I was pretty tired from standing outside for so long, so I leaned back and made myself comfortable, but, I guess that the combination of finally being inside someplace warm as well as my disinterest in the opening act quickly put me sound to sleep. An hour or so later, I discovered that it is nearly impossible to sleep when Jimi Hendrix is playing a few feet away.
After I was jolted back to consciousness, I saw on the dark stage, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Jimi was dressed in a psychedelic explosion of color like no one I'd ever seen before and when I heard the first chords of "Foxy Lady" I was mesmerized. As my innocent little teenage mind was struggling to make sense of it all, I suddenly became engulfed in a multilayered kaleidoscope of sound surging in on me like pulsating waves and finally exploding into a cascade of beautiful noise. The combination of the wall of amplifiers, his guitar gymnastics, and the roaring feedback, was completely hypnotizing and he seemed to do it all effortlessly. Hendrix was playing the crowd like he played the feedback, pushing it as far as it would go, then teasing and improvising and teasing again with these long sustained notes and then building to astonishing crescendo. It was as if he was making love to the audience and his guitar at the same time.
The single image that I have burned into my memory is of Hendrix sinking to his knees and bending over backwards with his guitar held high over his head as sonic waves of feedback screeched all around and then came crashing down. This was the first concert that I'd ever seen and none would ever come close to matching the complete mind bending euphoria of that show.
After the last song I felt a compelling urge that I had to speak to him so I hurried to the back hall where he was making his way to the dressing room. I didn't know what I wanted to say, but it was probably something intelligent and insightful like, "Man, you are really good" because I was somehow, convinced that he needed some words of encouragement. I did eventually catch his eye but too many other people got in the way and I couldn't really get a word in, He saw me trying to get his attention and I think that he also saw that I wasn't going to be able to talk to him, so he just looked at me and shrugged his shoulders like "Oh well". And that was the closest I ever got talking to Jimi Hendrix".
🈂️1969.
Recording. Olympic Studios London, England
🈂️ 1970.
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