From Plug Your Ears:
audience recording; good quality
From Chris Dixon's 30th Anniversary series:
Today marks 30 years since the 11 May 69 Experience show at the State Fairgrounds Coliseum in Indianapolis, Indiana. A busy week for Jimi has seen a gig in Syracuse, a return to Toronto for a hearing on the drug charge, then gigs in Alabama, N. Carolina and W. Virginia (the largest stretch of undocumented shows on the tour). Once again we have a tape that suffers at the hands of boomy arena acoustics. Not too bad and everything can be heard, though the guitar is a little on the low side and some high end detail is missing, esp from drums. A few between-song cuts do not affect the music, although some wild level fluctuations threaten to at times.
- -Jimi opens with the 'forget everything else' rap, then dedicates the show to "all the race car drivers" (Indy 500 coming up?), then adds "..the Black Panthers, (sounds like) barefoot Indians and you people, too...". Probably the only time in history that 'Indy drivers' and 'Black Panthers' get mentioned in the same sentence!
- -'Come On' makes it's first tape appearance since Jan., the 7th of 10 known versions (incl. Newport jam). There will be only one more documented Experience rendition, the following week at MSG. Jimi starts a riff based on the verse 'stops' and goes into the first verse without doing the intro chords as on ELL. After that, stays very close to the album arrangement with nice 'rock n' roll' soloing from Jimi throughout. Winds up the "Got me flippin like a flag on a pole" verse with "..c'mon sugar, let the shit hit the fan..."!
- -'HJ' another one seen infrequently around this time. Again only one more to go with the Experience (San Diego). Jimi dedicates the "blast from the past" to "the plainclothes policemen and other oddballs". Still muddling the words a bit, and still slipping in the 'I Feel Fine' quote, this time after the first "where you gonna run to now".
- -Jimi intros 'Stone Free' as another oldie to "get out of the way". Describes it as released "about 13 years ago...recorded in 1873 at the Benjamin Franklin Studios". Settles into a long intense solo which breaks down around 4:30 and moves to some chordal work that sounds like he's slapping the strings with his open palm high on the neck (we'll again hear this on 'SF's to come). A drum solo of around 3 min gives way to some more 'slapped' flamenco chords and back to the final verse at about 9min. This too only shows up on one more Experience show tape, as the opening medley at Newport Pop.
- -Starts to introduce 'HMT' but some disturbance down front prompts him to tell people to chill out so the "cops don't have to keep walking back and forth, blocking my mind"! a typically long solo features some nice 'lighter touch' playing at around the 7 min. mark.
- -'RH' gets yet *another* 'oldie' comment as being recorded in "1634" (hmm, maybe that was the 'Christopher Columbus Studios' ?). This one unfortunately suffers from some severe level fluctuations and ultimately a level drop with increased hiss (or, same hiss with less signal, ie. the real 'signal-to-noise ratio' in action!). It is, though, a killer version IMO and features an extra 12 bars of quieter soloing (lingering on some nice bends) before the vocals and 3 full verses of soloing before the 'percussive chord' bit (can't hear Jimi too well on that section) and a great unaccompanied interlude before going directly back to the final verse.
- -Intro of 'VC(SR)' has the guitar suddenly cutting out, leaving only Mitch. Comes back a few bars later and Jimi says "The name of this song is 'Some People Never Learn'.."- anyone's guess as to what happened there! Continues without incident. Solo breaks down to some cleaner low-register riffing around 4:00 and we hear Jimi touch on a riff that's reminiscent (or would that be 'preminiscent'?) of a part of 'We Gotta Live Together'! He starts the '...sweet time...' verse but goes back to a little more soloing before continuing. More soloing around 5:00 features some nice country-ish bends and ends with the climbing riff as heard on ELL with Jimi adding some upper harmonies. Restates the intro and adds the dental coda at very end.