Poetic beauty of a psychedelic dream
Jimi Hendrix at Woburn Abbey – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.
Some watch sport, films and drama in order to avoid thinking.
11.10.01
Hendrix played the Woburn Abbey Festival. We had to be there.
We camped in a field which the farmer had, rather maliciously, sprayed with liquid manure. The smell infested our tent forever. It had to be thrown away.
Geno Washington was the act who had the unenviable slot before Hendrix came on, but the tension of anticipation was too great. Everyone wanted Hendrix, poor Geno had no chance. No matter how good he was he wasn’t Jimi. The crowd booed and threw chairs at the stage. They wanted him off. There was electricity in the air. Everyone was baying for Jimi. Eventually Geno gave up and left. The roadies began setting the stage up.
Everything was ready. The stage was empty but it held such promise that all our attention was focussed on it. There was a pregnant pause that seemed to go on and on as we impatiently waited. Everybody was up on their feet, calling out, clapping, chanting, trying to contain the nuclear energy of expectation. This is what we had all been waiting for.
Then Jimi, Noel and Mitch came out on to the stage. The whole arena erupted and surged forward taking me off my feet.
The band plugged in and began to play. The speakers were crap. The sound was distorted. The speakers were just too small to deal with a big outdoor space; they couldn’t handle the volume. It didn’t matter. We could hear it and we could see them. The bass formed a wall of noise. Hendrix’s guitar soared and whined through it all. The drums pounded and the vocals punched over the top. The sound quality might not have been first rate but it was good enough!
The crowd surged forward to get even nearer, I was in the crush near the front. We all wanted to watch Jimi as he performed his magic. He was so much larger than life in a big black broad brimmed hat with a coloured sash around it, a floppy bright flowery psychedelic shirt, green loons with a scarf tied around the leg. He held that guitar like a weapon and unleashed it on us. The excitement was palpable – hysterical. The band were multicoloured giants storming around the stage. Noel stood still, studiously playing, while Mitch pounded away and Jimi stole the attention. You could not take your eyes off him. Hendrix was magnificent. The band blazed. Who cared about the sound quality? This was a wall of excitement the like of which an outside concert had never witnessed. We were bouncing up and down, caught up in the overwhelming group mania, living every note, every growl and wave of the hand.
He stroked, caressed and wrenched at his white Stratocaster, pulling out every trick. He played it between his legs, upside down and behind his head. The sound roared and the fanged beast he had produced and set free, devoured us.
Afterwards, in the press, they said that this was one of the jaded performances. If that was below par then bloody hell. It was the most exciting gig I’ve ever been too. Any more excitement and it would have been heart attack time. He was stupendous.
I only managed to see Jimi perform three times in a small club – I think Klooks Kleek, where he was mind-blowingly brilliant, at Woburn, where he was fabulous, and at his farewell concert at the Albert Hall which was nowhere near as exciting.
I’m glad I was alive to see such jaded dreams. I so wish Jimi was alive to have given us more of that magic. I’ll never experience anything like it.
8.11.01
Human beings do a lot of weird stuff to fill up the seconds that make up their lives. But is any of it more valid than anything else?
11.10.01
Poetry – Jimi – A poem for might have been and still might be.
Jimi
After all these years all you need to write is Jimi. Everyone knows who you mean. There is only one Jimi. He was not only the epitome of a guitarist, a showman and performer but an icon of an age, a symbol of all that a generation stood for and the idealism that changed the world.
When one thinks of Jimi standing there in his outrageous costumes you knew he was not dressing up for the show, he was expressing himself as an individual. He was blowing away the cobwebs from a dull and dreary post-war existence; he was drawing a line in the sand between the establishment (and the generation who chose routine, boredom, profit and war over fun, harmony, and meaning) and a new idea, a new approach, a new attitude – that we could live in peace, equality and freedom with purpose.
When I think of Jimi I think of helicopters in Vietnam, Agent Orange and machine guns, peace riots on the streets and phalanxes of State Troopers shooting at kids. I think of that young girl running down the street and enveloped by napalm. And I think of the friendship in the parks and gigs where everyone shared what they had and laughed, black with white, male with female and all together.
I only managed to see Jimi play three times for some ridiculous reason. I think we thought that it would go on forever and he would always be there. He wasn’t and nothing ever does – not even the bad stuff. But Jimi playing was a highlight of my life and will always be right up there with the best – and not just musically. He represented something greater than music.
We tried to change the world and I think we did. But the establishment fought back and wrested it back, tightening their control. We need another bout of sixties optimism, passion and rebellion. We need another Jimi, Bob and Roy.
So many years on and he is still Jimi.
Jimi
With the elbow, teeth and the back of the hand
As feedback wailed by design
Over the sound of the band;
With shades of Sci-fi
And the limits of the mind
Soaring free on the wind
As it cried Mary
And my thoughts drift back
To what might be.
Along watchtowers
Chewing gum to the cracking of a machine gun,
Outrageous in costume and style,
Psycedelically free
To test the limits
Of all that could be
And might be in that castle of magic
That left us all aghast
And has never been surpassed.
Opher – 1.8.2016
Anecdote – Jimi Hendrix at the Royal Albert Hall 1969 – The Farewell gig.
Jimi Hendrix and the Royal Albert Hall 1969
The Jimi Hendrix Experience was breaking up. It was tragedy. I had seen him perform twice but that wasn’t nearly enough. Now Jimi and the Experience were splitting and going their separate ways. I couldn’t believe it. Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell were not the most brilliant and accomplished of rhythm sections but they were exciting and dynamic and the perfect foil for Jimi to play with. They added rawness, energy and gusto to the act.
Electric Ladyland, the double album masterpiece, had been released to mixed reviews. A lot of people found it hard to adapt to the longer, more drawn out tracks. They preferred the shorter more exciting tracks they had become used to on Are You Experienced and Axis Bold As Love. It took a while for people to catch up with Jimi’s genius.
But all wasn’t quite lost. There was to be one last farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall. It was something to look forward to. All we had to do was to get hold of some tickets. Thousands of others selfishly wanted to be there as well.
There was nothing else for it. We had to queue up overnight to be sure of getting hold of some. There were a bunch of us. It seemed daft all of us queuing. Although it might have been fun. In the end Jules volunteered. We waved him off clutching money and sleeping bag. I think we were half expecting failure so it was a bit of a surprise when he returned the next day clutching tickets.
From there on it was a state of excitement as the day approached. We were expecting fireworks. The two times I had seen him before had been dynamite. I hadn’t known any act create such excitement. The whole audience went wild. And one of those was at Woburn Abbey where it was reported that the Experience were below par. They hadn’t seemed below par to me. They’d set the place alight and driven us wild.
On the day we got there early and piled in. We were up in the gallery with a great view.
The support act was New Traffic. Traffic had reformed for the gig. I loved them too and had seen them a number of times. They were brilliant and mesmeric so I was hoping for big things.
I didn’t get it. It was the worst I had ever heard them perform. They were boring. At the time I put that down to our eagerness to move on to the big thing. Probably nobody could have carried that spot. But I’ve listened to the tapes of the gig and they were definitely poor. It did not auger well. The Royal Albert Hall was not the best of venues for Rock. The sound was not good. It didn’t generate the best atmosphere.
When Jimi hit the stage everyone went haywire. Unfortunately so did the experience. Jimi was good. His playing was excellent but the whole performance was lackluster and had no fire.
I enjoyed it but did not come out singing with ecstasy like I had done before. The performance was flat.
I since listened to the tapes and seen the film. You can’t fault Jimi. I love everything he’s done. I love playing those tapes of him jamming in the studio, I love all his live gigs. I have endless hours of him. But the energy was sadly lacking from that last performance. From what should have been a brilliant memory to cherish forever it was just another good gig.
When I think of Jimi I think of those two earlier gigs.