New York (Madison Square Garden) : 18 mai 1969

New York (Madison Square Garden) : 18 mai 1969  


Titres :

1. Lover Man
2. Come On (Part One)
3. Red House
4. Fire
5. Spanish Castle Magic
6. Hear My Train A Comin'
7. I Don't Live Today
8. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
9. Purple Haze

Sources : Madison Square Garden '69 (ATM 170-171)


Il existe deux enregistrements "Audience" de ce concert, dont l'un est en ligne sur le site officiel :
http://www.jimihendrix.com/media/19690518.ram

Selon Chris Dixon, l'Experience s'est produit au Madison Square Garden sur une scène tournante... ce qui explique les fluctuations du volume sonore de la guitare, car les spectateurs qui ont fait les pirates restaient à la même place !
L'effet est plus marqué sur l'ATM 170, rendant son écoute plus difficile. Un Merge correct semble compliqué à réaliser en l'espèce...

La setlist est assez intéressante : Jimi débute le concert par trois titres qui sont soient des blues ("Red House"), soit des rock directement issus du blues ("Lover Man" et "Come On (Part One)").
La présence de "Hear My Train A Comin'" confirme la tonalité très blues de la performance.

Le concert débute par "Lover Man"... et il débute mal : Jimi casse une corde presque aussitôt ! Le temps de changer de guitare, Jimi se lance dans un long solo, où il rencontre quelques problèmes de justesse. On entend très distinctement l'effet créé par la scène tournante. C'est la dernière version de ce titre par l'Experience.

Une personne crie "Wild Thing" ! (on aura le droit à une seconde...) et Hendrix s'énerve contre les flashs des photographes...

Peut-être miné par ses problèmes personnels (Toronto...), Jimi n'est pas de très bonne humeur : à la fin de "Come On (Part One)", il s'énerve contre les spectateurs qui utilisent des flashs et même sur le fait que ceux-ci ne soient pas assis. Le chant est assez moyen mais la version déménage : le solo central est une véritable explosion !

A la réécoute, la version de "Red House" ne m'a pas semblé très impressionnante. On prend le train en route avec l'ATM 171 (les premières mesures sont coupées). Jimi s'emmêle un peu les pinceaux lors du passage en sixtes qu'il joue souvent en début de second cycle.
Le second couplet est lui aussi coupé : on saute directement au solo central.

Suit un "Fire" très solide, explosif à souhait où Jimi plombe un solo central de tueur. Mitch se lance dans un solo de batterie survitaminé qui sert de transition avec le titre suivant...

... à savoir "Spanish Castle Magic", dont le groupe livre une version FANTASTIQUE. Le solo central de Jimi laisse place à un passage a capella où Jimi s'aventure sur ce qui deviendra la "Woodstock Improvisation". Puis il joue pour la première fois en public le thème de "Villanova Junction".

Lors de l'introduction de "Hear My Train A Comin'" (où il y a un cut), Jimi joue un trait de guitare rythmique rappelant ce qui deviendra "Earth Blues". Le solo central est bien sûr de théâtre de furieux feedbacks de Jimi. Version moyenne toutefois.

Lors du solo central de "I Don't Live Today", Jimi cite le thème de "3rd Stone From The Sun" puis l'hymne américain.

"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" est assez inégal : des fulgurances, mais aussi des problèmes de justesse. Le second couplet présente toutefois des variations intéressantes.

Le concert se termine par "Purple Haze", dont ce n'est peut-être pas la meilleure version... mais l'intensité de l'Experience avait de quoi satisfaire l'audience. A noter une fantastique conclusion de Jimi en solo.


Au final ? Un concert moyen. De grands moments mais aussi pas mal de flottements.

Le merge:

3 Source Merge version 1.0 [Complete Show]; 1st Source (Yelen), 2nd Source (Kulick) & 3rd Source synchronized; 75:38) Merge made from Very Low Gen recordings: 1st Source: Aud; 2nd Gen / 2nd Source: Aud; 1st Gen / 3rd Source: Aud; 1st Gen

Je retiens de ce concert :
La fantastique version de "Spanish Castle Magic" ! Une version vraiment géniale, étonnante, inspirée et innovante.

La version bien musclée d' "I Don't Live Today".

La version intéressante de "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)", qui propose pleins d'excellents passages totalement inédits.

Et la fin de "Purple Haze" qui est bien hallucinant (de 3.11 à 6.15) !

VARIETY - ‘Experience deliver a driving set’ :
“Jimi Hendrix has become another piece of apple pie in America. The juvenile crowds that were frightened and offended by his initial tour with the Monkees two years ago have now become faithful legions with instant information concerning Jimi’s eye color, astrological sign, and guitar serial number. His Madison SquareGarden, N.Y., concert Sunday (18) sold out for a $101,280 gross with tickets scaled to $6.50. The Buddy Miles Express and Cat Mother €r the All Night Newsboys completed the bill. Big Buddy Miles, who huffs like a pressure cooker and swats his drums as though he were beating down a door, has finally gathered together the kind of group predicted when Miles first lowered the old Electric Flag to catch the Express. A beefed-up brass brigade, Herbie Rich’s huddled meditations with the organ, plus Jim McCarty’s mad dashes across the guitar have fused with Miles’ strongarm drumming to make the Express the darkest, downest, most sapping soul experience working in the rock idiom. Razored on the strop of McCarty’s electric strings, bent mercilessly in every direction, the group’s weighted-down blues sound penetrates like a blade, as Miles’ remote, boyish voice hangs back like second thoughts, adding to the edge by conjuring up a brand of blues that is far away and unsympathetic. Yet the group’s hybrid of rock ‘n’ blues is the most creative undertaking of its kind, though the lead-heavy music may be, because of its density, the secular wound for fans of the hard down. The group’s performances of “Miss Lady” and Otis Redding’s “Cigarettes and Coffee” were superb.
Cat Mother, five local boys who dig old rock ‘n’ roll and a lot of their own uninteresting material, bounded merrily through musical territory unaffected by content or design. Offering light and forgettable tunes, the group tripped harmlessly through “Bad News,”
“The Bramble Bush,” and “Marie,” scoring with their friendly, nowhere style and Monkees-like vitality, but disappointing by adding nothing but their good name to the rock picture. Bob Smith on organ and Larry Packer on violin, mandolin, and lead guitar, could lift the group to more meaningful heights. Although hampered by the revolving stage and popping flashbulbs, the Experience delivered a driving set featuring Hendrix’s brutally enticing guitar and vocals backed by Noel Redding’s explosive bass patterns and Mitch Mitchell’s relentless drumming. Playing their acid-rock in a post-psychedelic era, the Experience and the Who (who also played New York this weekend) prove that fads come and go, with the best of each fad remaining to perpetuate that particular brand of music.“

THE VILLAGE VOICE :
“...Hendrix is hard to deny.. .No more. He complained his own review from the stage Sunday night, threatening to stop if the flashbulbs didn’t, which they didn’t; bitching about the revolving stage, which also didn’t; being too bugged to play well, finally stopping abruptly. (He should bitch with all the bread he walked off with? A performer with Hendrix’s options is responsible for his audience, and for where he-plays). Such a natural born musician is he that, at his worst - and he was the worst I’ve ever heard him, you cannot fail to be aware of the natural born way he uses that guitar, as a uniquely electrical instrument. He is like a supremely gifted feral child come upon a fantastic new toy whose mundane possibilities everyone else has exhausted, but whose sublime potentialities [sic - potential] only he is clear enough to imagine and realise. My last image of the week was Mike Goldstein running interference [sic?] to get him and Noel and Mitch out the frenzied exit.”

RAT SUBTERRANEAN NEWS :
“‘Halfway through, Jimi drawled into the mike that the next time he performed in New York, he wanted it to be outside ‘so there wouldn’t be so many bad vibrations in the same place.’ It was chaotic from the beginning when people jammed the area around the circular revolving stage in anticipation of Hendrix’s entrance. This crowding and the flash bulbs that went off with strobe light regularity, obviously made Jimi nervous and he asked several times that people stop taking pictures and sit down in deference to others who came to listen. Police gradually cleared the area but the vibrations had already been set up and refused to clear.
The revolving stage was another down, for the audience, who were aware that half the visual show was being missed (to avoid this, some people followed the movement of the stage by walking at a steady pace along the first level inner landing: for them, the show must have been like a good five-mile hike) and for Hendrix who complained about it.
The sound, at least for anyone sitting down near the stage, seemed to rise up and fall (like some electric evaporation-condensation cycle) losing quite a bit of definition along the way. Hendrix still impresses me as THE best guitarist, but the Garden set was hardly an indication of his abilities. Unlike last summer’s Singer Bowl concert, where police were supplied with wads of cotton for their ears, cops at the Garden were unprotected and stood around, fingers to their ears like children on a subway platform. Hendrix dedicated ‘Fire’ to the teenybopper: ‘that girl with yellow underwear in the fifth row.’ A perfect description of the universal groupie. On one sweep to clear out the aisles, cops discovered a boy sitting in the audience naked. He jumped up startled and embarrassed when the heat approached, pulling on jockey shorts with one quick motion. Everyone in the area was a little surprised, but clapped in tribute as he was led out.
Jimi, with his hair now much shorter in a round Afro dome, wore purple velvet pants and vest and a light blue chiffon open shirt with head band to match. The mother of the bride was wearing…”

BILLBOARD - by Ed Ochs:
A Madison Square Gardenful [sic] of screaming teenies, calling from the tiers like crows on a clothesline, cawed and clawed each other to flash a camera in the face of the man who was once Little Richard’s guitar player, working up to a typical Jimi Hendrix Experience with cheers for Cat Mother... and.. .Buddy Miles Express.
Hendrix, a Reprise artist, of course, was loose and leering, bucking and flinching to the groans of his guitar, which is his speciality. Despite the showmanship that keeps serious rock buffs away from his self-celebrations, Hendrix is a brilliant technician and stylist, squeezing from his arsenal of guitars every shock of plugged-in power and psychedelic beauty.
His fierce, almost sadistic manipulation of the guitar’s personality, is arrogantly featured in his act as he humiliated the instrument by raking it across the microphone stand, playing it disinterestedly behind his back, pushing up the volume till it whines out in pain and, finally, popping a string and discarding it altogether.
With Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums, the Jimi Hendrix Experience is one that every rock nut should have sooner or later.”

JAZZ & POP :
“Cat Mother’s monitor speakers were on the arena floor (therefore stationary) and the band, of course, was on the turntable (therefore in motion), which meant that the musicians only got to hear themselves whenever they passed the monitors in the course of their revolutions.
By the time Hendrix came on, he was in a royal snit out front at the set-up, and his disposition was not improved once he began to play; indeed, he spent most of his time onstage muttering imprecations and threatening to walk off…“

ROLLING STONE - lettre de MICHAEL P. LAIRN, HILLSIDE, NEW JERSEY:
“SIRS: The management of [18 May] Madison Square Garden has proved once and for all that greed breeds ignorance. Their use of a revolving stage at the recent Hendrix concert and the July 12th Blind Faith show ruined two potentially great shows.
The management of the Garden seems to think that everyone wants to be able to catch periodic glimpses of the performers. Their answer to the problem of a round concert hall is a merry-go-round stage which distorts all the sound. But in their rush to pack in as large a crowd as possible, they ignore the quality of the sound.”

Mon Dieu, Jimi avait un look, une allure ce soir là. Quelle belles photos !

Et surtout quel film!!!!!

Oui, quelle classe! Qui d'autre pourrait porter les mêmes fringues sans paraître ridicule?
Personne n'a mieux que lui, il me semble , créé ( ou fait créer) des vêtements qui "collaient" aussi parfaitement à ses idées, ses fantasmes, son monde à lui pour tout dire.
Il faudrait bien un jour développer un peu plus l'importance de ses tenues pour Jimi et l'osmose" parfaite qu'elles font quasiment à chaque fois avec son personnage, son monde intime et personnel.
Définir plus précisément quelles étaient leurs caractéristiques qui, au travers de multiples et très divers costumes, avaient des fondamentaux, une cohérence et une originalité qu'on pourrait reconnaitre entre mille.
Cela rejoint une idée forte qu'on peut faire ( et développer ?) pour Jimi : la COHERENCE entre sa musique, ses rêves", son personnage et sa façon d'être dans la vie. C'est ce qui explique je crois en grande partie son "aura" et la fascination qu'il exerça et qu'il exerce encore et toujours.
Les universaux des costumes de Jimi", voilà une thèse qu'un spécialiste de la mode et de l'habillement pourrait faire...

Oui, Jimi était très classe ce soir là. Il y a quelque chose de très spécial, unique, dans ces photos MSG 69.
Dans celle que je viens de poster, on dirait qu'il est au sein de l'Electric Church. Quel chemin depuis le Café Wha? en 66.

Oui c'est vrai la dernière a quelque chose de tout à fait inhabituel parmi les milliers ( dizaines de milliers ?)de photos de Jimi. Effectivement on imagine bien une église ou une cathédrale, avec ses vitraux, lors d'une messe de minuit pour le divin (Voodoo ) Child...

Il a était photographié de partout ce jour là, les journalistes le harcelé à ce moment là pour son "problème" au poste douane à Toronto

Ouahhhh!!! surtout Hendrix Experience possède le film pros de très bonne qualité

Je ne sais pas si ses photos ont leur place ici, en tous les cas, voici à quoi ressemble Le Madison Square Garden

Electric Thing a écrit:

Top la première que tu as mise.
La seconde est marrante mais ils ont bien triché sur les couleurs...

Ce sont les photos retravaillées par la photographe Nona Hatay que j'avais invitée à Paris pour le festival Jimi's Back en septembre 1990...

YM

Le Madison Square Garden - la Mecque du Basket-Ball
La tenue de Jimi est incroyable !!!
Superbes clichés.

Mais où vas-tu chercher tout ça ?

Il est dommage que la prise de son soit effectuée depuis le public, parce que la qualité est relativement bonne. On n'ose imaginer le même preneur de son ayant accès à la console.

freddy.lombard a écrit:

Mais où vas-tu chercher tout ça ?

Juste quelques clics sur Youtube