Toronto (Maple Leaf Gardens) : 3 mai 1969

Toronto (Maple Leaf Gardens) : 3 mai 1969


Titres :

1. Fire
2. Hear My Train A Comin'
3. Spanish Castle Magic/Little Miss Lover
4. Red House*
5. Foxy Lady
6. Room Full Of Mirrors
7. Purple Haze
8. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Source : Il existe un enregistrement "Audience" de ce concert, de bonne qualité selon les critères de l'époque.

Il est en ligne sur le site officiel : http://www.jimihendrix.com/media/19690503.ram

* Titre coupé


3 mai 1969 : Le Jimi Hendrix Experience arrive à 9 heures et demi à l'aéroport international de Pearson à Toronto (Ontario). Les douanes canadiennes trouvent dans l'un des sacs de Jimi des substances illicites : il est aussitôt arrêté puis emmené au siège de la police dans le centre-ville de Toronto. Il est libéré contre une caution de 10 000 dollars en espèces et doit comparaître devant le tribunal de Toronto le 5 mai. Après sa libération, l'Experience se rend à l'hôtel Four Seasons, puis file directement au Maple Leaf Gardens, pour donner son concert.

Les conséquences de cet incident sont désastreuses : Jimi vivra avec la crainte d'un emprisonnement jusqu'à la fin de l'année 1969. Pas facile de développer sa créativité avec cette épée de Damoclès au-dessus de la tête...

L'article de Just ask the Axis contient en plus de la chronique habituelle de Chris Dixon une chronique d'époque assez intéressante, signée Ritchie Yorke :
http://www.digitalhighway.co.uk/axis/reviews/1105.asp


L'enregistrement "Audience" du concert donné par le Jimi Hendrix Experience le 3 mai 1969 au Maple Leaf Gardens à Toronto figurent parmi les plus intéressants du groupe.
Outre une qualité audio tout à fait acceptable (au moins pour ceux qui sont habitués aux pirates "Audience" de Jimi...), cette source présente une setlist inhabituelle, servie par une excellente performance, elle-même marquée par le contexte de l'arrestation de Jimi quelques heures plus tôt. Il modifie ainsi les paroles de "Red House" (très bien chantée) en faisant directement référence à l'incident, mais plus largement évite ou modifie les passages de ses chansons faisant l'apologie des substances illicites, et nous sert même un petit couplet anti-drogue lors du "Room Full Of Mirrors" medley...

Deux titres retiendront particulièrement l'attention des amateurs : l'Experience joue l'unique version Live de "Little Miss Lover" (au milieu d'une version impressionnante de "Spanish Castle Magic", qui elle même contient une citation de "3rd Stone From The Sun") et l'une des très rares versions de "Room Full Of Mirrors" de l'Experience (mais pas la première, contrairement à ce que Jimi annonce au public).

Pour autant, ces deux titres ne sont pas, musicalement, les points forts de ce concert : le chant de Jimi est moyen sur "Little Miss Lover" et "Room Full Of Mirrors" traîne un peu en longueur.

Mais la performance, prise dans son ensemble, est d'une grande qualité musicale, avec de solides versions des classiques du groupe et un Jimi appliqué dans son chant.

Le contexte de la performance, aussi lourd fut-il, explique peut-être sa qualité : d'une part Jimi devait être clean lorsqu'il est monté sur scène, d'autre part sa musique était sans doute ce soir là le meilleur refuge qu'il pouvait trouver...


Au final ? Une performance incontournable pour les amateurs de bootlegs de Jimi.

ATM 144 : Lookin' For Trouble

Moins marrant que le concert :

La même affiche que la veille à Detroit

TORONTO TELEGRAM by Peter Goddard:
“The crowd.., was keyed for his arrival. Hendrix’ last appearance in Toronto... [24 February 1968], had been an exhausting event. And this time, there was even an excellent band to complement him, Cat Mother... Their sound evoked an entirely new range of dazzling sense impressions - in fact, if graffiti were ever orchestrated the result would sound like Cat Mother.
Then Hendrix ambled out, looking half Apache, half street corner hustler in purples and greens and scarves and head bands. He solemnly announced a benediction: ‘We’re going to create a whole new world.’ And suddenly block after block of almost tangible columns of sound was built up.”

TORONTO GLOBE & MAIL - ‘The Hendrix dilemma: more artistry or more Fire’ by: Ritchie Yorke:
“For all its reputed benefits, progress is seldom welcome. The avant-garde may clamor for change, but most prefer the status quo. Even pop music, with its youth appeal is not immune: Proof of all this was given at the weekend concert in Toronto's MapleLeafGardens by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix is caught in a two-way struggle: he is anxious to explore new musical areas; yet he cannot go too far without distressing those tastes which want the Hendrix of Hey Joe and Foxy Lady. The result at the Gardens was a concert which tried to satisfy both the artistic imagination of Hendrix and the more basic needs of the audience which numbered 10,000. And thus - for all the flamboyance of Hendrix, the brilliant guitar playing, the occasional pre-1969 sexual showmanship - it was not a wildly successful show. In appearance, Hendrix was splendid. In fact, about the only thing in pop which can equal the dazzle of Hendrix' guitar gymnastics is his dress - - voliminous purple shirt and matching purple vest, red velvet bells, a watermelon pink head scarf worn apache style, a blue scarf tied in a tourniquet on his left arm, and a red, white and blue kerchief knotted at his knee. Around his waist were a silver medallion belt and a lime green scarf. His guitar was white. Drummer Mitch Mitchell and bass player Noel Redding didn't match Hendrix' flamboyance, but they, too, were striking.
Hendrix prefaced the 70 minute set with: "We want you to forget about today, about yesterday, and about tomorrow. Tonight, we're gonna create a whole new world." One-two-three-four and the into Fire. His guitar became the voice of the Rave New World. It screamed, hissed, and shreiked with the ferocity of a thousand dentist drills plunged into a single tooth. Only Purple Haze and Foxy Lady topped the impact of Fire. Newer songs - less commercial, less tuneful, but more involved musically - could not approach the force of the early Hendrix material. Even Voodoo Child, one of the finest cuts on his recent Electric Ladyland album, and the show's closer, did not come off with the sting of the old Hendrix. Where other contemporary performers - such as Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck - have restricted themselves to traditional blues, Hendrix has opened the form to innovation, and so far, only he has been able to develop this. Hendrix is trying to emerge as a lsting artist, but his audience wants more of his sheer sexuality.
The show was opened by Cat Mother and the All Night News Boys, a group recently signed by Polydor records in the United States. Its performance, which included some interesting improvisation on the electric violin, was outstanding.May) review by Ritchie Yorke: “For all its reputed benefits, progress is seldom welcome. The avant-garde may clamor for change, but most prefer the status quo. Even pop music, with its youth appeal is not immune: proof of this was given at the weekend concert in Toronto’s MapleLeafGardens given by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix is caught in a two way struggle: he is anxious to explore new musical areas; yet he cannot go too far without distressing these tastes which want the Hendrix of ‘Hey Joe’ and ‘Foxy Lady.’

TORONTO STAR - ‘10,000 at Maple Leaf Gardens’, ‘Jimi Hendrix presents a stunning hour of music’ by Jack Batten:
“The experience that Jimi Hendrix offered at his Maple Leaf Gardens concert on Saturday night was utterly, candidly erotic. More than any other pop performer, Hendrix’s music seems a natural extension of his own total sexual assurance. Sex, rock and blues dissolve and merge indivisibly in the man, and when he sings and plays his guitar, he drenches his audiences in waves of powerful, washing sensuality.
The eroticism began on Saturday night with the first wild sight of Hendrix who was, incidentally, out on bail after being arrested earlier in the day at TorontoAirport for suspected narcotics possession. He looked magnificently elegant, far more compelling than his photographs prepare you for, dressed in tight crimson pants, purple shirt slit to his navel, lots of brocade, slight Fu Manchu moustache, thick red head band. For a weird moment, he suggested Errol Flynn in Captain Blood on the late show, but, no, he was in fact the immaculate embodiment of 1969 sex.

Snaky Grace
He moved with snaky grace, and when he got into the music, he whipped the guitar around as if it was some slightly fiendish, tantalizing instrument and he acted out his blues with a series of frantically evocative postures and gestures that encouraged all kinds of fantasies. There was nothing studied about Hendrix’s effects or movements - it was all casual, over-the-shoulder stuff, and the audience, almost 10,000 kids, couldn’t resist him.
The program was beautifully paced, and it lost momentum only once, during Mitch Mitchell’s totally dispensable drum solo on ‘Spanish Castle Magic.’ Both of Hendrix’s accompanists, Mitchell and bassist, Noel Redding, provide him with all the support he needs, but as soloists they’re restricted in the spear-carrier class. Hendrix is the star, and the range of numbers allowed him to show off his style in a nice variety of moods He noodled around on a couple of slow, rocking blues, really freaked out on two or three choruses of his old standard, “Foxy Lady,” and just jammed on some other things. Hendrix’s style is of course hard and heavy, full of thick, dense sounds, and there were a few deliriously rocketing moments on Saturday when he registered with all the overwhelming texture of an earthquake. It was a stunning hour of music, absolutely literally, and near the end, he offered one last, madly sensual act when he raised his guitar in the air, drew it to his mouth and then.., played it with his teeth.
The Hendrix bill also included the superbly lyrical and tasteful band, Cat Mother and the All-Nite Newsboys. This group, specializing in beautiful celebration music, revealed itself on Saturday, as it has in its periodic visits to the Electric Circus, as one of the most rewarding bands around, and its good news that they’ll soon be releasing their first record on the Polydor label.”

BERLINSKE TIDENDE ‘Narkotika-anholdelse’ – [‘Narcotics arrest’] ‘Jimi Hendrix in court today’:
“Beat singer Jimi Hendrix was arrested on Saturday, when he arrived by plane at TorontoAirport from New York. He was charged for illegal possession of narcotic drugs. The police said that they found some white drugs on him. Against $10,000 bail (70,000 crowns) he was set free and could drive to the MapleLeafGarden concert hall in Toronto, where he should perform. Jimi Hendrix will be charged in court today.”

Superbe !

Un concert fantastique à (re)découvrir :

Une meilleure qualité sonore serait vraiment top pour ce bon petit concert. Dommage qu'il n'ait pas plus souvent jouer Little Miss Lover en live car c'est super frais
Plaisant de le réécouter, merci Titi

Cela fait très longtemps que je ne l'ai pas réécouté mais j'en garde un très bon souvenir. Avec une super version de Hear My Train et un solo de premier ordre sur SCM. Oui pour Little Miss Lover, dommage, c'est un titre qui aurait pu remplacer de temps en temps les Fire ou Foxy Lady. Et RFOM est, à mon avis, vraiment plus intéressante sur ce tempo lent.

Je ne sais pas si cela a été posté quelque part sur ce site (je ne l'ai pas encore vu !), alors j'ai pensé le poster ici.

Il s'agit des empreintes digitales de Jimi lorsqu'il a été incarcéré à Toronto le 3 mai 1969.