Jimi Hendrix live in '69
May 5, 1969 I went to hear Jimi Hendrix play at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. For those of you not from Canada, this historic building was the longtime home of the Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey team. It was, however, a terrible place to hear music, with poor acoustics and hard seats.
Also, as we learned later, Jimi had been busted on his way into Canada for a teddy bear stuffed with heroin... customs apparently bought his story that a fan had given it to him in the US and he hadn't looked at it.
He seemed a bit restrained at first, muttering something like "Tonight we're going to create a different world." Then he did. His playing was sometimes uneven, but when it caught fire (which his guitar did, too), there was and is no-one like him. He reinvented hard electric blues and rock by using his axe to think electronically as well as musically, touching not just time but space. Hard to believe that was forty years ago, and he died just a few years after that concert.
Apparently there is a digital copy of this concert on a Hendrix website but I haven't listened to it yet.
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Abraham Mertens says:
Hendrix
Hello John,
Your description of Hendrix's playing is perfect. I understand exactly what you mean. There's something amazing that happens when a musician creates and performs a piece of music that captures all of your attention the way Hendrix could.
Thanks so much for sharing this.
Abraham Mertens, redroom.com
WALLACE BROWN says:
Jimi Hendrix 1969
I'm glad there are still people who remember 1969 and are willing to admit it. Rock on!
Deborah Grabien says:
Deborah Grabien
Deborah Grabien www.deborahgrabien.com author of the Haunted Ballad series, the Kinkaid Chronicles, five standalone novels, numerous short fiction and essays, and a lot of snippy opinions.
I actually remember Woodstock beautifully; I wasn't stoned for any of it. Let's just say that running around with the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane while being allergic to both pot and hash was - interesting.
John Parker Oughton says:
1969
Well, I remember *some* of it... ;-)
John Parker Oughton says:
Plastic Ono Band in TO '69
Coincidentally (1969 was my year for concerts) I remembered I was also at the Rock and Roll Revival in Varsity Stadium in September that year. John Lennon performed with an instantly-assembled band that included Eric Clapton, and Yoko Ono (who climbed in and out of a large bag while screaming). Other acts included the Doors; Alice Cooper; Little Richard; Bo Diddley; Jerry Lee Lewis... 12 hours of music. Now I discover that DA Pennebaker has just released this June a documentary of the event... it would be gas to see it now! Perhaps even a stone groove. Far out, man.
WALLACE BROWN says:
1969
I saw the Airplane in Golden Gate park a couple of years later. I just stumbled onto it, didn't know they were playing and free! That's one of the things that was great about those years. Whatever happened to spontaneity?
Deborah Grabien says:
Deborah
Deborah Grabien
www.deborahgrabien.com
author of the Haunted Ballad series, the Kinkaid Chronicles, five standalone novels, numerous short fiction and essays, and a lot of snippy opinions.
"Whatever happened to spontaneity?"
Mostly, Richard Nixon, Watergate, and then Ronald (ewwww) Reagan. And of course, any chance of it making a rebound was firmly kiboshed by 9/11.
If you saw the Airplane in the park in the early seventies, I was there too. The only exception would have been for a couple of weeks in 1972, when I was either being rebuilt after a horrible car accident, or about a week elsewhere with the Stones.