Arhus (Vejlby Risskov Hallen) : 2 septembre 1970

Arhus (Vejlby Risskov Hallen) : 2 septembre 1970


Titres :

1. Freedom
2. Message To Love
3. Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)

Source : "Welcome To The Electric Circus Vol. 2"


C'est un enregistrement "audience" d'excellente qualité audio. Les instruments sont tous audibles, et bien équilibrés. On le retrouve aussi sur l'ATM 017 "Soundboard Series Vol.2" (en raison de la qualité audio, même si c'est un enregistrement "audience").


Plus encore que l'Ile de Wight, le concert d'Arhus a contribué à ternir la réputation de la dernière tournée du trio Hendrix/Cox/Mitchell. Mais aussi renforcé l'idée selon laquelle Jimi avait perdu toute son inspiration à la fin de sa vie. Avec le concert du Madison Square Garden, c'est sans nul doute la pire performance de toute sa carrière... dans la mesure où l'on peut appeler ces trois titres une performance.
Tous les biographes s'accordent sur la détresse dans lequel Jimi se trouvait alors : fatigue, défonce, maladie, déprime. L'homme était alors au fond du trou.

"Est-ce que vous allez bien ? Merci Dieu, merci Dieu... Donnez-moi quelques minutes afin d'essayer de m'accorder, OK ?" Jimi dit-il d'une voix assez inhabituelle.
Il rajoute ensuite : "Bienvenue au cirque électrique, notre première chanson s'appellera "Freedom"."  

Il lance "Freedom" sur un tempo particulièrement lent. C'est un premier indice car Jimi a plutôt tendance à jouer ses compositions sur un tempo plus élevé en Live. Dès le premier couplet, on se rend compte qu'il n'est pas dans un état normal : son jeu en rythmique se réduit au strict minimum. Problème réglé lors du second... mais en zappant totalement le chant. Le passage central est complètement raté. Il y a du mieux lors de la reprise, Mitch et Billy redressant notablement le tempo. Jimi se plante toutefois magistralement lors des dernières mesures (la montée en accords neuvièmes pour être précis).

Jimi dédie le titre suivant "au monde, la galaxie... paix", "c'est un truc qui s'appelle..." Jimi semble manifestement perdre le fil de sa pensée et demande si "Message To Love" est bien le titre annoncé.

Il lance péniblement la montée chromatique de "Message To Love", et met beaucoup de temps avant de commencer ses parties vocales. Ces dernières sont souvent décalées vis-à-vis du reste de la rythmique.
Le solo central est particulièrement long, et c'est le seul passage du concert intéressant du concert. Après un début très moyen, Jimi finit par se retrouver un peu, notamment avec un superbe trait en feed back. Comme la veille, il cite le riff de "Power Of Soul", présent sur la même face de son dernier album en date.
Jimi tente de reprendre le chant une première fois... mais échoue. Il retente une seconde, et propose un dernier couplet particulièrement décousu, avec un jeu de guitare se réduisant au minimum. Il peine avec la montée chromatique finale...

Jimi enchaîne avec une improvisation a capella précédant l'introduction de "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" telle qu'on la connaît sur la version officielle. Improvisation sans intérêt suivi de l'introduction, jouée avec une mollesse à faire dormir un insomniaque...
Mitch se lance dans un solo de batterie, sans doute pour permettre à Jimi de récupérer un peu. Mais ce dernier ne reviendra pas sur scène.


Au final ? Pathétique.

« Cette nuit, j’ai reçu un coup de téléphone d’Angleterre : ma fille Aysha venait de naître. J’ai loué un avion afin de revenir voir Aysha, juste pour la journée, en fait je ne l’ai vu qu’une heure. Je suis juste revenu à temps pour le concert de cette nuit qui était à Århus au Danemark. J’étais fatigué mais je me sentais bien. Le concert a été atroce ; Jimi a quitté la scène après environ deux titres. Je ne sais pas ce qui s’est passé avec Jimi ce jour-là, parce que je n’étais pas là, mais il y avait manifestement un truc qui n’allait pas. »

Mitch Mitchell, In The Hendrix Experience

AARHUS STIFTSTIDENDE - ‘Jeg er træt af at ligge ned’ [‘I am tired of lying down’] by Jorn Rossing Jensen

Jimi Hendrix (in Århus this evening) feels mentally hollowed; he prefers reaction to revolution and is on his way towards a universal religion.
Maybe vulgar - but not - obscene.
Wasn't it the Pentecostal movement, which stood there with its heavenly message in the little portico at the Big Stage at Liseberg? And while the light streamed from the angels' flame-thrower and the 32 saved began singing, "Find your God", came Jimi Hendrix - the electric religion. They sang for him. They wanted to greet him as a preacher, a prophet who will show us the right way to the gospel of rock music?
Jimi Hendrix, 25 years old [sic]. Half Negro, half Mexican - an outcast. But when he works himself into his sizzling elegies, he is called the best beat guitarist in the world.

What does he want?
- I want to play my guitar, all the other things I write in a book. When will it be published? Some time after my death.
Feel for it.
Last Sunday Jimi Hendrix and Experience (Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox) played at the festival of Isle of Wight. Last Monday in Stockholm, Tuesday in Gothenburg. Tonight they will be on stage in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen. For the first time in a long time, Jimi Hendrix is on tour and it continues.
- I am tired of lying down and I feel mentally hollowed. Under all circumstances it can become different, even if the tour is lonely.
The Stockholm critics found the show boring?
- They must be the only ones. The audience was good, we noticed reactions. If something is going to work, you have to feel for it. And we did.
No politics.
Jimi Hendrix does not mean that he is politically involved - but still he sent a big cheque to the Martin Luther King Memorial Fund.
- They needed the money.
Maybe there were others who needed it too?
- Tell me, do you want me to give it to the Ku-Klux-Klan?
The Rolling Stones want revolution, they sing about uprising in the street, now it is time to change a sick society. But is Jimi Hendrix on the front line?
T-h-i-s
- No I am not. At one point you have to choose: Revolution or Frank Sinatra. For me it was Frank Sinatra - and the reaction. I want to urge people to a lot of things, t-h-i-s (and then Jimi Hendrix takes his guitar and plays back and forth for a couple of minutes). I want to turn people on.
- Yes, I have said that I am electric religion - because it is all about religion, not Christianity. It was the Christians, who started most of the wars in this world.
I see in front of me a universal religion, containing all beliefs, containing the essence of them all.
The place found.
In that religion the children can grow up and feel free, they will not be programmed, like they are today. And they can go to college even as ten-year-olds.
I have been looking for a place, far away from this mechanical world, where cities and hotel rooms run into each other. I have found it, inside myself. Now I want to spread it.
My music needs love and understanding. Through music you get more religion than through anything else.
Jimi Hendrix and Experience will play as long as they feel good - And when we do not that anymore, we will tell you three years ahead.
Not obscene.
- Is it true, that The Daughters of the American Revolution accused you of being obscene?
- Me, obscene, I have forgotten. Should I be obscene? (Looks at himself in a mirror). Maybe somewhat vulgar, but obscene (Again in the mirror). You confuse me with Jim Morrison.
- He is not a voodoo doctor, is he?
- Bahhh, you can have an opinion about me, and I have heard many, but witch doctor - pushhh. There isn’t such a thing anymore.
I do not feel like an outcast, as long as I am not treated as one. It has not happened today, but then I have been sleeping all the time.
They stand there.
Jimi Hendrix and Experience are due on stage. The entrance fee to Liseberg amusement park is raised from 1 Swedish crown to 19 Swedish crowns.
- I hope you got, what you wanted, he says.
- Yes, I hope you will too.
- I will - after the tour.
- Groupies?
- Hah. It is only persons, who are jealous who call them groupies. To me they are nice girls. And they will be there for sure.
---
At the concert tonight, Cat Mother, an American rock group, which has not been to Europe before, will play first. Jimi and Cat Mother continue the tour to Berlin.

DEMOKRATEN - ‘Faldt som en våd karklud’ [‘Fell like a wet rag’]
We got the heavy, groovy blues rock from the group in "Freedom", rock 'n' roll in "Message of Love" - but it all only lasted for 8 minutes, then the curtain fell for the guitar phenomenon Hendrix.
Jimi Hendrix completely "freaked" out in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen.
Vejlby-Risskov Hallen was yesterday evening the setting for the greatest rock scandal since The Who went on stage in Århus-hallen on September 26th 1965 and were attacked by fanatic fans, who razed the hall in a moment.
Jimi Hendrix got to play, like The Who, only a few minutes before it went wrong - but in contrast to five years ago, it was not the audience, who spoiled the concert - instead it was the highly esteemed single guitarist himself. Jimi Hendrix who completely freaked out.
It went like this: After the last lovely vibrations from the support group Blue Sun had closed around 20.15 an awaiting and expectant atmosphere spread in the Vejlby-Risskov Hallen. Now the man everyone was waiting for - and whom you had paid from 35 to 55 crowns to see, should show up. But the minutes passed, and while everyone stared despairingly at the stage entrance the mood was raised. There was stamping in the floor, whistling, and clapping. Meanwhile fifty press people and the organizers stood together and waited for the great master.
Finally at 21.05 the bass player Billy Cox came first, afterwards the drummer John "Mitch" Mitchell - and at last Jimi Hendrix who under earsplitting applause entered the stage in his spangled clothing: black shoes, chalkwhite sailor-trousers, blue-lilac coloured silk scarf, tied around the upper arm, on the outside of an tight orange-red Chinese shirt with blue yellow spots.
- “Are you feeling all right?” asked the wild man with the rebellious curls, held by a blue headband. “Yeahhh,” was the answer
– “Then welcome to the Electric Circus”.
But there was no electric circus. After Jimi and his two companions had build up a stimulating compact wall of sound with tearing elegy from Hendrix' guitar, which he used in his widely famous "machine gun" style - it all fell down like a wet rag.
Precisely 8 minutes passed before Jimi Hendrix dropped his guitar plectrum. We only got a sporadic understanding of the capacity of the three top musicians before it happened. Hendrix became strange and stood and strummed on the 12 stringed with the fingers completely lacking inspiration, even though it was not support he needed from the 3,000 young people in the hall. Mitch Mitchell tried to save the rest with a great drum solo, while Jimi took a smoke, hidden behind the amplifiers. But the concert was over - you could see it on Mitchell who looked anxiously after Hendrix and Cox, who both stood and talked behind the stage. The last drumbeat died and it was announced over the speakers that Hendrix would take a five minutes break. The five minutes became 10 and 15 - half an hour passed before the releasing message came: Jimi Hendrix feels very sick and cannot play anymore tonight. (Screaming and obscure yelling). He promises though soon to return and give a free concert here in Århus - everyone can get their tickets refunded tomorrow at Kåbers Musikforlag.
It was the complete frustration, nemesis for the many Hendrix fans that could not see how he staggered between all the empty beer bottles in the adjoining room.
Before Hendrix went on stage, the inner circle amongst the organizers were already saying that he had freaked out. And this misgiving was now confirmed: Hendrix had a blackout. Whether he was drunk or high no one could confirm in the panic that started - and it was not possible to get any sense from him - but he had let down his fans, and this can have some bad consequences – not many Hendrix records will be sold in the near future at least.
Århus Studenter Jazz is left with an economic spanking, which could be felt long after. One understands their disappointment. The arrangement was well planned and the Studenter Jazz should not be blamed that Hendrix freak out at that time. One really hopes that Jimi Hendrix shows himself to be a man and that he will keep his word and returns to Århus and give a free concert, he owes the audience that - and not forgetting Århus Studenter Jazz.
(Page?) ‘Plop ! Farvel Jimi!’ [‘Plop! Farewell Jimi!’]
- “I am so tired and have not slept for three days,” said the world’s best guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, before his concert in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen yesterday night. That is why he should have cancelled his performance, which only lasted eight minutes. 4,000 people who had paid more than 150,000 crowns in entrance can go and get their money back today."

MORGEN POSTEN - ‘Jimi Hendrix: - Jeg ofrer noget af min sjæl’ [‘Jimi Hendrix: - I sacrifice some of my soul’]: “I am not sure I will live to be 28 years old,” says the 25 years old [sic] rock-idol Jimi Hendrix in an interview with Morgenposten. - The moment I feel I have got nothing more musically, I will not be around on this planet anymore.

Unfortunately the concert in Århus with the one who is possibly the greatest guitarist of rock music did not turn out as we had expected. Jimi Hendrix was exhausted physically and mentally due to a far too tight touring schedule, This caused him to give up, having struggled his way through two songs, as he was unable to complete the concert. It was a shame - for both him and us, because we know he can do it, but the day before yesterday it did not work out. Still it must be said that the two tunes, he did play, "Freedom" and "Message to Love" from the album "Band Of Gypsys" really brought us onto the enormous sound trip that characterized his music. The music was there, warm and vibrant and everything else ceased to exist.
“Welcome to the electric Circus,” Jimi Hendrix opened by saying, but it was to be short-lived. Still you got time to enjoy both Jimi's eminent guitar playing, Billy Cox's bass playing as well as Mitch Mitchell's powerful percussion.
However, Jimi Hendrix promised after the concert had been broken off to return within a month to give a free concert in order to enable everyone to experience his wonderful playing, which at its best lifts us up into a higher sphere.

Talkative
It was clear that Jimi Hendrix was tired. Already long before the concert he talked about canceling because it simply was not fair to the audience. Even so he was very talkative before the concert. As a matter of fact he talks without interruption and gesticulates with his hands. Upon seeing the harbor of Århus, he exclaimed: Oh a harbor,this is the drag about being on tour constantly, we never get a chance to see the places we play, but it is all part of
the machinery. I prefer to play in Europe, because here people listen and understand what it is all about whereasthey freak out in the States. I do not like playing at night as I cannot see the audience, this is the most beautiful part of big open-air festivals, it is light and you can see the faces of the audience.

Religion is the thing
Jimi Hendrix talks a lot about supernatural phenomenon’s, all the time he returns to Jesus and Genghis Khan: -"In reality Jesus started off a lot of wars, not himself but the people who supported his cause. That is why Christianityis a something of the past. Religion is the thing and it has to be found within yourself, you have to live with peace of mind. Most human beings have been born as human beings made for love and peace. It is only their obligations
in our society that make them dress gray and black.
- Why is it, that I keep hearing Mick Jagger's name? Jimi Hendrix asks. We are into different things, but I suppose thoughtwise we have got certain things in common. I would like to get involved in starting off a record company ith the Rolling Stones, which they have talked about. Music is my life, you have to be honest. It is about life and feelings and you must take your time for it like in any other occupation. In my case, I sacrifice a part of my soul every time I play. There are also certain moments when I feel I HAVE got to write, especially before I go off to sleep when all thoughts run through my brain. My guitar is my medium and I want everybody to get into it. I want to turn the world on. Music- and sound waves are cosmic when they vibrate from one side to the other.
I am not sure I will live to be 28 years old (he is 25 years old [sic] now). I mean, the moment I feel I have got nothing more to give musically, I will not be around on this planet anymore, unless I have a wife and children,otherwise I have got nothing to live for.

Not LSD
While he continues to talk about mystical things, he says among other things that he does not like LSD, "because it is naked". “I need oxygen”, he says and takes a deep breath.
About his close friend, the leader of the group Love, Arthur Lee, Jimi Hendrix says: - I am very fond of him. We are like brothers. We could start a new human race with our music. I would very much like to do more things with him.We have just recorded an album together. We think and feel the same way, so it would be wonderful if we could work out something together. We are a kind of spiritual Gypsies traveling around getting our message out through our music.
I love reading fairy tales, H.C. Andersen and Winnie the Pooh. Fairy tales are full of fantasy and like music theyappeal to your sense of imagination. I never play a song the same way twice. I cannot play something that I do not feel for and that I can put my soul into.

Witchdoctor
Concerning his plans for the future, Jimi Hendrix says he intends to keep this band at least till the tour is over. With this line-up they have recorded about 150 tracks, 15 out of which they will be able to use on their next album.
As for the bootleg album, which is supposedly been recorded after the festival at Woodstock, Jimi says he does not care.
People have many weird ideas about me, he continues, the ones that label me do not know me, or only one part of me. Like I said before, I hate labels and the one with witchdoctor on it does not stick.
Immediately prior to the concert, Jimi Hendrix said: - I am the bus driver and you are my passengers.
As a matter of fact this remark summarizes all of his music - He is the captain of the spaceship, and he wants to take us – the listeners - along his space trip, out to where the sound waves are allowed to tickle you.
On stage he radiates electric energy, in private he is quiet and reflective...like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, such is the nature of Jimi Hendrix.

Merci Mitch. Photo très révélatrice.

Il y a une photo que l'on peut vraiment situer à 6:22, quand Jimi compte les frettes de la montée de "Message to Love" et se perd ensuite...

La salle du spectacle (jimitree)

il n'y a plus rien eu de nouveau depuis longtemps

Il était effectivement mal lors de cette dernière tournée, au bout du rouleau. Et Billy Cox n'était pas bien non plus.
Qui a décidé de la tournée? Ce n'était pas une tournée de promotion de l'album Band of Gypsys, alors qui?

Oui, il aurait mieux fait de retourner vite fait à New-York pour finir son album à venir !

Oh! c 'est simple ce quI est arrivé à Jimi ce soir là,c'est pas les drogues ou un peu d alcool ,c'est pas la crève bien que fiévreux ça n'aide pas, c'est le MANQUE  de SOMMEIL, il est impossible de faire l 'économie du temps de récupération... sur les photos c'est le visage de quelqu'un qui lutte désespérément pour rester éveillé...IL faut imaginer un peu: fiesta au studio avant de prendre l 'avion pour wight concert tardif après minuit en mode surchauffe (quid du jet lag?) puis avion transport direction pour concert Stockolm  le 31 août c est à dire le mème jour que Wight et puis le lendemain etc ... après 4ans de boulot quasi non stop...  Burn-out de sommeil et de repos voilà tout!