Re: 1969-02-18 Royal Albert Hall, London, England
Tuesday 18 February 1969
London SW7, Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Grove, England. JHE
Rehearsal: songs unknown
Chas attends the rehearsals and does a bit of managing.
Chas later said that the band was so bad, if it was up to him
he would have sacked Mitch & Noel and cancelled the second gig (24th), retrospective high horse? a little too much pre interview "hospitality"?
Photo call with Eric Hayes: “Quite honestly, I must have been in a trance, because I remember very little of what was going on, except that I had no trouble getting into the hall, and my pictures are my diary.”
Concert at 19:30, sold out
Support: Soft Machine; ‘Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog’ (ie 'Traffic' with 'Frog' in Winwood's place)
Promoter: Harold Davison Ltd.
Audience: 5,000
Tickets: 3/6, 7/6, 10/6, 13/6, 16/6, 21/- (one Guinea).
Songs:
Tax Free (13) (Bo Hansson & Janne Carlsson)
Fire (54)
Getting My Heart Back Together Again (17)
Foxy Lady (59)
Red House (46)
Sunshine Of Your Love (25) (Jack Bruce, Pete Brown & Eric Clapton)
Spanish Castle Magic (30) >
<Message To Love (48)>
<Spanish Castle Magic (30)
Star Spangled Banner (17)> (music: John Stafford Smith )
<Purple Haze (68)
Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (45)
Melody Maker (22 February and 01 March) backstage interview by Bob “The Raver” Dawbarn -
BD: Before his Albert Hall concert.., he told me:
Jimi: “I just hope the concert turns out all right. We haven’t played in a long time and we concentrate on the music now. As long as people come to listen rather than to see us then everything will be all right, It’s when they come to see you doing certain things on stage that you can get hung up....
I dream about having our own show where we would have all contemporary artists as guest stars. Everybody seems to be busy showing what polished performers they are and that means nothing these days it’s how you feel about what you are doing that matters. I just cross off those people who are just doing it for their own egotistic scene instead of trying to show off another side of music.
Say, wouldn’t it be great to take over the studios like they do in Cuba. We’d call it the Jimi Hendrix Show - Or Else! And there would be no smoking in the gas chambers while we were on.
BD: Jimi admits that he feels a little restricted by the trio format.
Jimi: “It restricts everybody - Noel and Mitch, too. Now and then I like to break away and do a bit of classical blues....’
BD: “Jimi laughed when I said I thought I could detect church music influences in some of his things.
Jimi: ‘Spiritual music, maybe, but if you say you are playing electric church music people go ‘gasp, gasp’ or ‘exclaim, exclaim.’ The word church is too identified with religion, and music is my religion. Jesus shouldn’t have died so early and then he could have got twice as much across.
They killed him and then twisted so many of the best things he said. Human hands started messing it all up and now so much of religion is hogwash. So much of it is negative - Thou Shalt Not. Look at sex. It’s been screwed around so much I’m surprised babies are still being born. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to stop people going to church. But as long as I’m not hurting anybody else I don’t see why they should tell me how to live and what to do.”
New Musical Express (22 February) ‘Hendrix Plans Strip Shows’ - backstage interview by Richard Green -
RG: “His idea is for an open-air concert where they audience can feel free to do as they please, and this includes taking off their clothes. Before his Albert Hall concert on Tuesday, he explained his idea.
Jimi: ‘I wanna do it in the summer, a free thing in Hyde Park,’ he began, momentarily forgetting the clamour all around him, ‘It’s not the idea of people coming and taking all their clothes off, it’s just that if they want they can... They can feel free.. .do what they want. Today, there’s too much hang-up on clothes. Clothes are okay to express yourself, you can wear bright clothes if you want. But the human body is the most beautiful thing, it shouldn’t be kept covered....
RG: “Resplendent in his usual black hat with a brightly coloured band and feather, green trousers and waistcoat white [sic] shirt and red waist band, Jimi spotted Madelene Bell. Jimi: “[When can you do a recording session with me?]”
Madelene Bell: ‘Anytime, just call,’
RG: Jimi grinned and replied:
Jimi: ‘We’ll get some soul down.
RG: His dressing room, which he was sharing with Mitch and Noel, had now become occupied by a host people, including Chas Chandler and his lovely Swedish wife [Lotte] the amazing disappearing Mike Jeffery. Dave Mason, former Speakeasy host Roy Flynn, [promoter] Dick Katz, [record label] Major Minor’s tame Ian Paisley, Jimmy Hollihan, among others. Mitch told me:
Mitch: “These concerts are okay, but I’d rather be on a tour, be on the road. Today, it’s just round the corner, do a concert and go home. You do a month the States and feel shot at the end, but the first two weeks are great!”
Review by Richard Green: “Out front, Mason, Capaldi, Wood, and Frog (hereinafter referred to as Traffic, because everyone else still does), went on stage to thundering applause. They started off with an instrumental, and after a short time I got the impression that they are far freer and lighter than in days of yore. Maybe they were in some way inhibited by Steve Winwood. The nice thing was that eight or ten years ago, the people who were at the concert (age-wise that is) wouldn’t have listened to that kind of jazz. Now they will and do. Traffic played ‘Long Black Veil” and a really together version of ‘Feelin’ Alright,’ which sounded so much better with Chris Wood’s sax phrases. Master James Capaldi was as ridiculously good as ever, and it was noted that ‘new boy’ Wynder K. Frog has fitted in well and is beginning to share Traffic’s groove. ‘Waitin’ On you’ and Dave’s ‘World In Changes’ were the final numbers, and I gather that the latter is being considered as a single. It was eight o’clock by this time, and having spent most of the day with Noel Redding I was beginning to feel the strain, as can well be imagined. He played me the Fat Mattress album which is great, drove me to the hall in a Rolls- Royce, made me walk for 20 minutes through icy cold with Traffic and Noel to what he insisted was the nearest pub, showed me a copy of Rolling Stone and swore that he knew all the birds in it, and put on Jeff Beck’s Truth at full blast.
So to Jimi’s act. In his field he is a Segovia or Manitas de Plata except that his guitar is electric. A packed house stood and roared their approval at everything he did, which surprisingly still included ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Foxy Lady.’ Most of the time, the titles of his numbers were lost, but that wasn’t important. It was enough to watch him and listen. His every expression, facial or musical, was a thing to behold and his voice, while not one of the world’s greatest, expressed his feelings so well. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mitch Miller as the programme described him, was drumming as well as ever and Noel proved that the bassist needn’t always be regarded as the third (or fourth) member of a group. Little cracks Iike, ‘I’m twice as embarrassed at this standard of tuning, but cowboys are the only people that stay in tune, anyway.‘ from Jimi had a good mood going. As if one was needed. There weren’t that many of the gymnastics we expected from Jimi, but he scored just the same with what seemed a minimum of effort.”
Noel: “We played Jeff Beck’s Truth in the dressing room to get into the mood. Jimi was relaxed and happy. Instead of his usual non-stop jumping, he played in a variety of poses and we went down well...”
[Are You Experienced? by Noel Redding & Carol Applehy, p. 93].
Mitch: The first show was appalling. One of those gigs where you wished you could go back the next night and make up for it, but you had to wait a week. I don’t know what it was, it just didn’t feel good.. .but funnily enough most people enjoyed it.”
[The Hendrix Experience by Mitch Mitchell and John Platt, p. 128].
Chas: “That was a lousy show, among the worst I had ever seen Jimi play. And it wasn’t his fault, it was Mitch and Noel’s. They were lifeless. Mitchell’s timing seemed totally off, he was coming in late so often it seemed like he was out of his brain, and Redding was just trying to show how awkward he could be....
If I had been in charge, they would have been sacked the next day. Mitch and Noel wouldn’t have done the second show that would have been the end of it.”
19 no gig London
20 no gig London
21 no gig London
22 no gig London
US: AYE ? Billboard
US: ELL ? Billboard
23 no gig London
Last edited by stplsd; 10-13-16 at 06:19 PM.
Frank Zappa: "Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read."
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