Indianapolis (Fairgrounds Coliseum) : 11 mai 1969

Indianapolis (Fairgrounds Coliseum) : 11 mai 1969


Titres :

1. Come On (Part One)
2. Hey Joe
3. Stone Free
4. Hear My Train A Comin'
5. Fire
6. Red House
7. Foxy Lady
8. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Source : Indianapolis '69 (ATM 061)



La qualité audio de cet enregistrement "Audience" est malheureusement très mauvaise. Le groupe est très lointain, et le son incroyablement sourd. Il n'y a guère que la voix qui soit vaguement appréciable. Il faut en plus souligner de grosses variations du volume sonore...
La balance des instruments est plutôt correcte (même si la basse est en avant), mais c'est la définition qui est très mauvaise. On entend tout... sans rien vraiment entendre.

Le chant passe sur "Come On (Part One)", d'autant que le groupe ne joue pas lors de ces passages. Le groupe suit la trame de la version studio.

De même, seul le chant est appréciable sur "Hey Joe".

L'interprétation de "Stone Free" rappelle celle du Royal Albert Hall : long solo de guitare suivi d'un solo de batterie et d'un passage flamenco.

Jimi présente un blues en Mi : "Get My Heart Back Together" (aka "Hear My Train A Comin'"). Le solo central semble très intéressant... mais il faut avouer qu'un effort de reconstruction mentale de celui-ci est nécessaire pour suivre son fil !

Version classique de "Fire"... dont le son est terriblement sourd.

Jimi tente quelques variations dans le placement de sa voix sur "Red House".

Sur "Foxy Lady", la basse bouffe même la voix...

Au final ? Pour complétiste uniquement. Si Jimi n'était pas mort, qui écouterait un concert aussi mal enregistré ?

Petit truc marrant, il dédicace le show à "all the race car drivers" (certainement en référence aux 500 miles d'Indianapolis)...  

THE INDIANAPOLIS NEWS - ‘Jimi Hendrix’ Coliseum Audience Goes Hungry’ by Bob Basler:

“A starving man will grab at anything which resembles food, and Indianapolis’ young people last night accepted a morsel of entertainment in the form of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and went away hungry.
The audience left the program most thankful, perhaps, that this city has no place larger and less acceptable acoustically than the Fairgrounds Coliseum, because the show undoubtedly would have been held in such a place if it existed. Rock superstar Hendrix, ordinarily an exciting entertainer, couldn’t really get into his music last night, but the audience didn’t seemed too concerned. By the time the warmup group, Chicago, finished its performance, it was apparent that nobody behind the third row would be able to make sense of the sounds from the stage. If bad production and promotion were a crime, those responsible for last night’s exercise in mediocrity could be indicted on at least three counts:
1. Choosing the Coliseum - an acoustical nightmare, suited only for livestock expositions.
2. Using an unannounced warmup group whose playing time amounted to slightly less than that allotted
Hendrix.
3. Ridiculously high-priced admission.
The promotional concept was obviously one of “pack- ‘em-in, fleece ‘em, get out quick and don’t worry about satisfying the audience.” There is an argument that the mass rock concert is no longer a viable form of entertainment. Recording studio perfection in sound just can’t be duplicated in a place like the Coliseum and rock fans who know the performers only through records will be satisfied with little less than perfection.
Beyond screaming and shrieking
Young fans, particularly in Indianapolis, are beyond the stage of going only to see the performers and to scream and shriek - they want to hear the groups as well, and it doesn’t work. Last night’s concert begs to be contrasted to that given 14 months ago by Cream, a group similar in number, makeup, and style to the Experience. The Cream concert was performed in ButlerUniversity’s Clowes Hall and that group was given every chance to satisfy the audience which had assembled to see it - an obligation which was fulfilled. By comparison, last night’s Concert was hasty, slipshod, and disappointing. Hendrix abandoned many of the songs his audiences love most, including “Purple Haze” and “The Wind Cries Mary.” He half-heartedly plowed through a sampling of his talents and abruptly left the stage - no encore and not much excitement generated among his fans.”

DAILY CAPITAL NEWS - ‘The experience isn’t so wild" by ‘Mark Cambell’?:

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, touring the country until the end of May, isn’t the wild and wooly experience it used to be.
The suggestive and beyond suggestive gestures on the stage and dousing the guitar with lighter fluid and setting it on fire aren’t being done this time around. Hendrix burned his guitar at Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, when he was an unknown, and got a good deal of publicity. Maybe it has served it’s purpose.
Hendrix says. “Pretty soon audiences were coming to see us just to see us do those things. It was gettting to be a drag. We didn’t feel like it at the time.
“We haven’t burned any guitars lately. We only did that about three times [actually only twice] – when I felt extra nice. I stopped doing it when getting too much publicity made us feel kind of uptight when we were on stage.
“The public was trying to get tired of us so they could go on to the next thing. They squeeze something until it is completely dry. I don’t want to be known as a rock star. We’rer trying to really and honestly get our music really together.
“At our concerts you mostly listen to it and feel what is happening, now. That is why we play more and move around less. We concentrate mostly on sound now. We get it to a mostly hypnotic sound for the audience. We play unbelievably loud, not piercing.
“it’s better than going to a riot. Feeling vibrations and letting loose at a place like that is like a soul-bending type of thing. It’s better than bending your soul in riots; you should never get to that point.
“Our music is part of blues-based on blues anyway. I call it electric church music. It’s a very hard and harsh and primitive sound, not necessarily good or bad or stoned. You’re going to get something out of it if you let you’re mind flow with it.
“It should be played outside where 100, 000 people can get together – the Grand Canyon or Central Park. That’s where an electric church is supposed to belong. There should be no barriers to this type of thing.”
What about the people who say that the group is still very sexy? “I think about sex a lot; it’s part of my nature, we have songs like ‘Foxy lady.’ If they get a sexy feeling out of it, it is great. At least we turned them on to something.”
Hendrix has written most of the songs performed by the Experience – himself, bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell both English – on three Lps. “Are You Experienced?” “Axis Bold As Love,” and “Electric Ladyland.”
“But I feel there are certain songs from other people that I’d like to do, solely because we like them and think they might say something. We may record another Dylan tune, “Tears Of Rage.”
“In “All along The Watchtower” he said it so groovy. It’s our own arrangement though.”
Hendrix has been called “The black Elvis” in a couple of publications but he says he doesn’t like that. “It’s the establishment’s game. Pat us on the back and get rid of us quick. Squeeze the soul out of us and put us in cages for the rest of our lives. But we won’t be put in. We don’t pay attention to brand names like that.”
Hendrix from Seattle, learned the guitar while playing Muddy Waters records. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was formed soon after he went to London in 1966. Each of it’s three members sometimes performs outside the group. Redding, for instance, has formwed a group, the Fat Mattress, with which he performs part of the time.
“There were rumours about us breaking up and people were trying to break us up.
But that and other heavy hangups are finally solved for us now .”