Saturday, September 18, 2010

Blues for Jimi

Today sees the 40th anniversary of the death of guitar god Jimi Hendrix.  To honour his memory, here's a clip of one of his very finest moments - playing his blues song Red House at a gig in Stockholm in January 1969 (one of the last appearances of the original Experience line-up: Mitch and Noel on exceptionally fine form here too).  And yes, he's here playing a Gibson rather than his more familiar Fender Strat; it seems to work well with a slow blues number like this, but it's not the 'sound' we associate with others of his most iconic tracks.  RIP Jimi.



[I went to see Hendrix tribute act Purple Smog (they seem to have finally settled on this name, after toying with various other 'Beijing-themed' Hendrix song puns such as Orange Haze) at VA Bar on Thursday night. They played a single 1-hour set, and it was some great stuff, with most of his classics (though not this). I gather they were only planning to play a handful of gigs to commemorate this anniversary and then return to the obscurity of their day jobs. I hope they'll reconsider that. They are a kick-ass trio.  There's a clip of them doing Purple Haze on their debut show at 2 Kolegas a few weeks back here (thanks to Ruby over at BeijingDaze for this link).

Before, after, and in the background during (which I could have done without), VA was showing some Hendrix documentaries and concert footage I hadn't seen before - including what looked like a complete film of the whole of this Stockholm gig. It was the Gibson guitar that helped me track it down quickly on YouTube. Awesome, awesome show: I need to get that film from somewhere.]

6 comments:

Hopfrog said...

Wow, thanks for this. Huge Hendrix fan, but somehow I had never seen this footage. Had no idea Geddy Lee had been playing bass since the 60's! Man that dude looks a lot like him.

Jimi on an SC and shreddin' that BB box, priceless!

Froog said...

Glad you enjoyed that, Hopfrog.

Dig around on YouTube for other numbers from that concert. It was a mind-blowingly good show, and I'd never seen any of it before.

omg said...

Froog,
This is awesome. Thanks so much for leaving a note letting me know you'd posted it. You've got a great memory -- this is indeed my favorite. I'm not much of one for watching my music, so I really hadn't seen any Hendrix performances other than the U.S. anthem at Woodstock (which makes me cringe). It was truly cool to watch him do his thing in this video. These guys are so patient for the first 7 or 8 minutes, and their talent comes across as effortless. It's a great version; thanks for sharing it.

Froog said...

You're more than welcome, OMG. I'm delighted to have finally enticed you over here again. (Or have you been lurking all this while? No, I think not.)

omg said...

No, not lurking. Just staying busy outside of internet-land.

Ruby said...

Thanks for the link! BTW, it's not the last we'll see of "Jimi" and the boys, they've been asked to do another show at VA on October 28th.