Notes

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Jimi Hendrix Experience

audience recording

"ONE NIGHT AT THE ARENA" (Venue 100501)


This was Jimi's only 1969 visit to New England, this after some 9 concerts east of NY state in 68. He would only visit New England once more, at Boston 6/70 (tho never did play New Hampshire or Vermont that I've seen). The tape of this show has a reasonable instrument/ vocal balance, though the guitar could be a little louder in places.

* Jimi does his spoken intro about forgetting all that came before ("..we'll make our own world and see what kind of world we want to have..."). After hearing someone (the taper?) point out that "he's got three amps all to himself!" (some pics around this time still show the third stack to be a spare), we get the second to last Experience 'Lover Man'. Again features some extended 'scat' singing near the end, plus a short but fierce solo tag before the final chord.

* 'IDLT' gets introduced thus: "Sorry for the delay but I was just thinking back 2 or 3 hundred years. There's a whole lot of hang-ups but we still live in America, we're still Americans and we want to keep things happening nicely and work towards these things. Everyone's aware of disasters, and we try to point those things out with sounds...". Another fast n' furious final section with Mitch's snare work much more detailed than on many audience tapes - he matches Jimi's pace nicely, catching the accents of his riffs...

* 'Red House' introduced as recorded at Ben Franklin Studios in 1783 and as an "American blues". During a pause before starting, Jimi slips in a joke about his frantic touring pace by saying how nice it is to be in "Miami, Florida...oh, that's right, Dallas..."! He takes RH a little slower this time, but all the better for him to cram as many ideas as possible into every phrase - offhand genius at every turn! As usual, the quieter stuff sounds cleaner. The solo section starts with a nice buildup, again accented by Mitch's snare work. The 'percussive chordal' bit, again with fairly sharp attack, gives way to the unaccompanied interlude- nice throughout (yeah, never met one I didn't like) but the band loses each other a bit coming back in and doesn't really lock in until part way through the final verse.

* 'HMT' gets a much slower and longer voice/ guitar intro, Jimi throwing in some extra words and giving the lines much more detailed, bluesy inflections before doing the more standard shouted "Well I hear my train a comin'" intro. A long solo ends up at some trills around 6:00 over which we hear some abrupt 'slide' sounds as if he's swiping the guitar against the mic stand. An apparent cut in the tape finds him doing some more quiet riffing and some vocal 'scatting' on the "hear my train a coming" line to finish.

* 'SCM' dedicated to the ever-present "plainclothes cops and other goofballs". The solo section turns into an almost free-time jam around 3:00, flirting with a double-time feel with Mitch's snare work almost louder than Jimi! Jimi does some sustained feedback notes and around 4:30 it sounds a little like he's swelling notes with his volume control (not something he did often, what with the guitar's controls on top). At about 5:10 Jimi pulls out the first public appearance of the 'Earth Blues' riff, though only for a few bars as Mitch starts a solo at 5:30. Jimi re-enters about a minute later with the 'SOYL' theme but goes back to SCM after only about a minute and a half for the final verse and ending.

* As on the previous night, 'Foxy' is dedicated to "the girl with the yellow underwear". She will appear at a number of shows to come! Goes straight from solo coda into 'Purple Haze' and there's a couple of drastic tape speed fluctuations but it settles back. The PH 'dental coda' contains the first line of 'Star Spangled Banner' but he leaves it at that.

* Jimi says "We've got to leave before the bad people get us" (?), then introduces VC(SR) as a "...song for a little self-assurance...everyone must identify some kind of way to accept peace and happiness...". The sound changes a little here as if the taper changes position slightly. Jimi's first solo is fairly short and he's into the "...your sweet time..." verse by the 3 min. mark. He repeats "If I don't see you no more in this world" 4 times, doubling the number of measures spent on each chord (one of the first, but not last, times for stretching that line out). He takes off on a long final solo, moving through some variations on the 'climbing' riff then pulling back to some muted strums around 6:00. We then get a great 'flamenco' section similar to the one in the previous night's SCM. He then restates the opening VC riff, takes off on a few final explorations and a double time 'boogie' riff similar to the Oakland version's before finishing it all off with some dental work.