The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Tuesday, March 26, 1968
Public Music Hall, Cleveland, OH
2nd show
1 Intro
2 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
3 Fire
4 I Don't Live Today
5 Red House
6 Foxy Lady
7 Spanish Castle Magic
8 Manic Depression
9 Purple Haze
10 Wild ThingÇTaps
AUDIO:
¡ audience recording; 58 minutes, very good quality (1-9)
From Chris Dixon's 30th Anniversary Series © C S Dixon
March 26, 1998 is 30 years since the only Jimi show ever in Cleveland.
Jimi's only appearance in my hometown! Sadly I was only 11 and didn't go. There were two shows that night and the first was marked by a bomb scare. The crowds at both shows were rowdy and tore up Music Hall so bad that Jimi wasn't welcome back to Cleveland (robbing me of the chance to see him, as I certainly would have in 69 or 70!). I remember shortly afterward tearing an article about the show out of a Time magazine in the school library- it was titled 'Fireman, spare that guitar!' and written, I read later, by Joe Ezterhaus, Clevelander-turned Rolling Stone writer-turned big time screenwriter. Also read later that PR man Michael Goldstein was from my home 'burb of Shaker Heights and there was a description of Jimi tooling around Shaker in the Corvette he bought that day in Cleve- jeez, he was right there!
Anyway, the second show survives on tape. Not too bad sounding for the era but, as is typical, the vocals are buried on the loud songs. Some great shots survive from the shows and I can see that the PA stacks were a mere 2 Altec Voice of the Theater cabs (15" speaker and 1" horn) per side- I got more PA than that in my garage!! Near the beginning of the show Jimi says (I think) "Welcome to Cleveland"- one of the few times I can think of him referring to (or maybe, knowing) the town he's in during a show! Couple of musical notes:
* Opens with increasingly rare 'Sgt Pepper'. Only later recorded versions are 9 months later in Providence then twice in 1970 (Philly and IoW).
* Pretty slow 'Red House' and ever longer- over 11 minutes now (though the tape is a little slow). Middle part features a wah solo followed by the 'slapped' chordal bit into a couple of heavy handed verses.
* Sixth documented 'Spanish Castle Magic' still close to record at under 5 min.
* Great, and ever rare, 'Manic Depression', 3rd of 7 recorded live ones. Before playing it the crowd is yelling out requests and Jimi says "we want to play Stone Free but first we'll do Manic Depression", however after MD he says "we can only do 2 more so just pretend we did Stone Free" !!
* Before Wild Thing he uses the 'I'll take off my hat if you take off your pants" line as the crowd's been yelling about the damn hat since the third song! Wild Thing has a higher-than-usual # of quotes. Before starting the familiar chords he does that 'Leader of the Pack' line, then a few words (mentions the soldiers coming back with 'feedback guitars'), then a few bars of what sounds like 'Dear Mr Fantasy' (though contains hints of his later 'Bolero' progression)! Also, after the usual 'Strangers in the Night' quote he plays what I think is a Jeff Beck line from 'Shapes Of Things', though it might be something else (Cream?) that I can't quite put my finger on at the moment .
The tape continues for quite awhile after the show ends and at one point you hear a guy yell something like "whoa, better put your crash helmets on!" ??????....guess we'll never know.....
Cleveland Rocked,