Page 96 - Classic Rock (January 2020)

In The Court Of with full-body immersion by the
The Jimi Hendrix
Experience
The Royal Albert Hall EXPERIENCE HENDRIX
Definitive audiovisual gig experience finally
surfaces – premiered where it was filmed.
onsidering it will soon be an
incredible half-century since
CJimi left the planet, this ‘holy
grail’ of Hendrix movies couldn’t be
better timed after almost taking that
long to come to fruition. Shot around
February 1969’s second Royal Albert
Hall show, the film (then called
Experience) got bogged down for decades
in legal tangles, although a shoddy
preview appeared on video in the 80s.
Vividly restored by original producer
Jerry Goldstein, with sound remastered
by Eddie Kramer, this is now as close as
it can ever get to experiencing Hendrix’s
still-unchallenged live impact and extra-
terrestrial charisma.
Unveiling a rough cut in the venerable
building where the show took place is
a fabulous touch (poignant for this
writer, who attended the first 1969 gig,
sitting over 50 years later with Mr Pike,
the school teacher who organised its
coach trip and attended the second gig).
After words from Janie Hendrix and
Goldstein, it’s into a jaw-dropping Stone
Free, Hendrix’s molten solo sending
spine-tingles familiar from 50 years
before; on fire for what would be his
final indoor UK concert.
Maybe robbing some atmosphere in
96 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
’69, Goldstein floodlit the hall with house
lights on, but that makes it possible to
witness every grin, grimace or groin-
thrust as Hendrix powers through Foxy
Lady, Red House and Voodoo Chile, between
off-stage footage that starts with Mitch
Mitchell en route in Rolls-Royce, and
Hendrix playing Hound Dog to fawning
females at his Brook Street abode, or
relaxing post-show at the Speakeasy.
Although little betrays the simmering
inter-band tensions, Jimi has rarely been
caught in such loose intimacy.
Adding to tonight’s gig atmosphere, an
enthusiastic crowd of Hendrix veterans
and younger fans applaud every flash of
guitar genius, and guffaw at strangely
gesticulating idiot dancers or the
uniformed on-stage jobsworth staring
rigidly at Jimi from behind his military
moustache. After the set ends with
Hendrix smashing his guitar after a stage
invasion, the most memorable shot is an
exhausted Jimi slumped alone in the
dressing room, sadly shaking his head.
Although billed as “One Night Only”,
this stunning historic work will
inevitably be seen again. As it should.
It’s the best Hendrix film yet.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Kris Needs
King Crimson orchestra’s bassist Scott Pingel.
(Revised Edition) It encapsulates everything about
Sid Smith PANEGYRIC SM&2, and about Metallica:
Crimson king. bold, ambitious, fearless.
For those with an QQQQQQQQQQ
insatiable appetite Dave Everley
for all things King
Crimson-related, Suzi Q
Sid Smith’s meaty CADIZ
and detailed tome Glam girl icon on film.
has long been the definitive work Chronicling Suzi
on the subject. First published in Quatro’s half-
2001, it’s a beautifully written century journey
and endlessly engaging dive into from wild-haired
one of rock’s most consistently teenage Detroit
inexplicable, bewildering and garage rocker to
brilliant bands. groundbreaking glam-era pop-
Pleasingly, this revised edition metal pin-up and beyond,
more than justifies a repeat director Liam Firmager’s
purchase, not least because of reverential documentary is an
all the frenzied Crimson activity unchallenging but enjoyable
that has unfolded since the birth watch. Besides Quatro herself,
of the band’s most recent, Firmager includes interviews
‘double duo’ reincarnation in with an impressive guest list
2014. It’s these additional including Deborah Harry, Alice
chapters that will have the Cooper, Donita Sparks, Sir Tim
diehards scuttling back to Rice, Tina Weymouth and Chris
Smith’s printed door. It’s all Frantz. Perhaps the most crucial
delivered in the same snappy, inclusion is Joan Jett, who admits
smart and nimble prose which copping much of her bad-ass
leather-clad tomboy style from
made the original so easy to
read in one sore-eyed sitting, Quatro. Some of these cameos
are also unwittingly hilarious.
and with fresh and telling
observations from current After hearing Quatro’s Can The
alumni Gavin Harrison, Tony Can, Kathy Valentine of the
Levin and Mel Collins, In The Go-Go’s recalls: “My brain
Court remains the closest thing literally exploded.”
to a real rummage around in Equally at home in pantomime
Robert Fripp’s head. and stage musicals nowadays,
QQQQQQQQQQ Quatro was always more
Dom Lawson wholesome family entertainer
Metallica & The than hard rocker, which
San Francisco inevitably lends a certain
Symphony blandness to the film; there’s
scant backstage drama or sleazy
Orchestra gossip here. Even so, she
S&M2 BLACKENED emerges as warm and likeable,
Roll over Beethoven: Hetfield with a pretty grounded grasp of
and the orchestra are back. her modest but still-crucial place
If Metallica’s in rock history.
original S&M QQQQQQQQQQ
concert was Deep Stephen Dalton
Purple fanboy Lars
Ulrich living out Look Wot I Dun:
his Concerto For My Life In Slade
Group And Orchestra fantasy, this Lyse Lyng Falkenberg
20th-anniversary follow-up goes & Don Powell OMNIBUS
full Last Night At The Proms. Paperback version of troubled
Everything that was great Slade drummer’s life story.
about the original – which was Given that Don
pretty much everything – is Powell has
blown up to IMAX scale here, suffered from
from the set-up (band amnesia since
positioned in the centre of the a near-fatal car
orchestra) to the sheer volume crash in 1973, you
of noise that crests and rolls for could forgive him for not writing
its two-hour-plus duration. his own life story. Instead, his
A handful of songs from the friend, Danish writer Lise Lyng
past 20 years slot in neatly amid Falkenberg, painstakingly
ones from the original, but the ploughed through the daily
highlight is an electrifying diaries he kept for many years
version of former bassist Cliff afterwards, adding extended
Burton’s instrumental showcase quotes from Powell as well as
Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth), played input from former bandmates