Copenhague (Falkoner Centret) : 10 janvier 1969 [Second concert]

Copenhague (Falkoner Centret) : 10 janvier 1969 [Second concert]


Titres :

1. Fire
2. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
3. Foxy Lady
4. Spanish Castle Magic
5. Hear My Train A Comin'

Le site officiel avance la setlist suivante (confirmée par Plug Your Ears) :

1. Johnny B. Goode
2. Sunshine Of Your Love  
3. Red House
4. Fire
5. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)  
6. Foxey Lady  
7. Spanish Castle Magic
8. Hear My Train A Comin'

Une partie de ce concert ("Fire", "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)", "Foxy Lady" et "Spanish Castle Magic") fut disponible officiellement sur le dernier CD publié par Univibes en 1995, Jimi In Denmark.

Cet album a été réédité tel quel par le label semi-officiel Radioactive sous le titre de Jimi In Copenhagen.

Source : Je ne dispose que des 4 titres publiés par Univibes en 1995. Pour un enregistrement "Audience", la qualité audio est excellente. La voix est certes un peu en retrait, mais les instruments sont tous audibles, et bien équilibrés.

"Fire" commence... par l'intro de "Foxy Lady" ! Mais Jimi avorte son feedback et attaque un "Fire" énergique. Version solide avec deux bons solos.

"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" est dans une veine similaire à la version studio. Le solo central contient de beaux tirés. Jimi rencontre quelques problèmes de justesse sur la fin mais il les négocie plutôt bien.

La voix est très lointaine sur "Foxy Lady", dont le solo débute sur les bases de la version officielle. Du solide là encore.

Le chant passe mieux sur "Spanish Castle Magic", qui est le plus long des quatre titres. Jimi se lance dans un solo relativement long, avec des séquences fort différentes : solo intense, longs feedbacks, jeu en accords. Après un passage a capella, Jimi ralentit considérablement le tempo, que Mitch relance au fur à mesure que Jimi développe son solo. Jimi reprend le riff assez brutalement, sans toutefois chanter le dernier refrain.


Quatre titres seulement, mais quatre titres solides : de quoi espérer plus de ce concert ! Un jour peut-être ?

Le Jyllands-Posten revient sur ce concert dans son édition du 12 janvier 1969. Le chroniqueur, très enthousiaste, note toutefois que le volume sonore était tel qu'il était à la limite de la douleur physique par moments (sur "Fire" notamment).

BERLINGSKE TIDENDE - ‘Bluestroldmanden Jimi Hendrix’ – [‘Blues wizard’]
”More than 4,000 attended two sold out concerts with The Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Falkoner Centret. It turned out to be a tremendous meeting with experimental blues-magic, which is expected from The World’s best beat-musician.”


EKSTRA BLADET - ’Jeg elsker dig mens du sover’ – ‘I love you while you sleep’, ‘
Jimi Hendrix and Jethro Tull at the Falkoner Centret’ by Carsten Grolin:
“It is always the others who give an artist an image. It is those who translate what he does or plays into words. So and so many words about those and those ideas, and so he is classified. I think the music speaks better for itself than what the label says. That is why the short and value-laden portraits are both wrong and dangerous. In this way some reviewer characterized the stage act of Jimi Hendrix the other day, as immature sexuality gimmicks. This would demand that the reviewer is very sure, that the gimmick of the artist is not purely liberal, but liberality with connection to the content of the show. The reviewer accuses the artist of being dishonest. I think Jimi Hendrix is honest. I think he is one of the most honest people in the world. To be honest you have to see things from many sides, as many as possible. And in the music of Jimi the things are seen from as many sides as possible. In Jimi’s music there is an endlessness of thoughts and feelings, but no loose ends.
Another label connected to Hendrix is aggressiveness and violence. If he should classify himself he would more likely use words like soft, romantic, and dreaming. Here we are with he honesty again. Being more honest, one will explore more new thing. There can easily be so many, and they can be so beautiful, that people who have seen less would fall back for the strength and intensity.
Actually I think that Jimi Hendrix’s only problem is that he has to fight against these two very hard and confounded thoughts. Everything else he has experienced. He has tried the total expulsion; he has fused together two completely different cultures, the white brain culture and the colored heart culture into a future synthesis. He has been on the stage hundreds of times and he has made love to hundred thousands of girls through his guitar, so that they at last will open up and have the sound waves tickle wildly. He knows he can. We know he can. But can he also show us his big soft heart? Can his audience follow him, can anybody follow him, or should he be left alone? There was obvious a difference on the audiences pleasure to follow out and see the purple haze at the two concerts yesterday in Falkoner Centret. The audience of the concert seemed frightened and self-protective, while the more freaked out part did recognize the major part and said ohh! so loud that one could hear it... Jethro Tull review...
Jimi Hendrix: - When you have given it all it can take

BT - by Keith Keller:
“Happy and rested (he used a broken leg to drop a Dutch show) Jimi Hendrix last night stood in the Falkoner Centret and gave what everyone of the new music’s trophies has aspired to in this place - the total sound in the total music: The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Hendrix is 23 years old now [sic] and is probably the greatest solo talent in beat music. As a singer he is of the American city black’s solid tradition (he is from Seattle up North). As a guitarist he is on the level of a genius, all by himself, not even his two ‘Experience’ partners seem to make any more than the most monotonous rhythm behind him.
Old gimmicks.
It will be interesting when Jimi Hendrix some day will drop the usual beat-claim and meet up with a rhythm section which can follow him in his solo trips. But everything is interesting under all circumstances, when just Jimi Hendrix is Jimi Hendrix, a flamboyant artist, a light to look into the future.
His old gimmicks with burning of the guitar he has fortunately dropped. He still takes the guitar to the mouth and plays a passage with his teeth, but this seems to be all natural, when the effect is part of the super sound Hendrix want to, and can, make. The guitar gets new dimensions in the hands of Hendrix - and under his teeth. He uses the flow in all drifting as a part of the melody. He knocks the rhythm behind the fingerboard with three of his five fingerings. He steps stop-go rhythms out with the break on the foot pedal. He uses jet screams, so that they sound connected and sounds like natures sound, and finally he gets the purest parts, by treating the guitar in a way which old master Segovia would appreciate. No breaks.
The repertoire at the concert yesterday was old and new, fx. a couple of songs from Electric Ladyland, but as Hendrix himself said, they mainly did some jamming, improvisations, and experiments to get new standards. With this in mind there were no breaks. The frequently demanded revolution with definite rules and meanings became usable future by Hendrix last night. Usable? Not possible to miss. Shame for those cozy English blues men, Jethro Tull, who where supposed to warm up. After the concert, one only remembers that they never found the switch. They did some scratching on their stomach while playing some loveable music. Today they can scratch their head and try to sort out what it was, which came and blew them off the stage and out of the memory. It was The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Jimi Hendrix makes a couple of lines of an explosive melody with
teeth (or tongue) against the strings. It does look weird, but there
was musically sense in this also
… interesting to see when Jimi Hendrix, some day, will meet up with a rhythm section which can follow him. But until then Jimi Hendrix is Jimi Hendrix, a artist, a light into the future... Shame about those nice English bluesmen, Jethro Tull, who where supposed to warm up. After the concert, one only remembers that they never found the switch...”

POLITIKEN - ‘Beat med brækket ben’ [‘Beat with a broken leg’]
A broken leg did not keep the American beat musician Jimi Hendrix from showing up and making the audience wild in the crowded Falkoner Center yesterday evening. His guitar play and advanced blues feeling has influenced many beat groups, and the concert yesterday evening indicated that he still will be a pioneer. A very nice start on the beat year 1969.
(page ?) ‘Ro og vildskab’ [‘Peace and wildness’] review by Ole John: “Jimi Hendrix, he just stands on the stage and is quiet, until the curtain goes up. The next second with the ringing of his amplifiers behind him and he is out in his electric universe. From peace to wildness, when he touches his guitar and sends a stream of feedback and transistor noise out against his body. But it is no shock to see, because Hendrix moves tenderly and relaxed from one dimension to another.
- I do not know if this is loud enough, he says and turns up the volume on the amplifier and disappears in his supersonic world, where his emotions are registered at top speed in all shades. Not as much the melody or the lyrics because he often plays the same chord, the same theme, for a long time, where variations are decided by which buttons he turns up and down. A dimension of vibrations, as if electrodes were connected directly to his nerves. He cries with his guitar, he hits it, he treats it tender against the microphone stand. He lets the guitar play by itself, press his feedback buttons and let the sound be itself, thrown around by the drums. His peace and wildness is that he controls this sound chaos. He turns the sound waves around him, in certain directions, in different movements. He directs them after his immediate emotions, after the moment and is ready, almost classical in every movement. His clothes (colours, colours) his ornaments, his hair and his head movements is synchronized with his hands in a similar visual experience. His music can hardly be compared with any other beat music, all right there are melodies and songs, and some of it is heard on records, but Jimi Hendrix is completely himself in the land of technique. “Electric Churchmusic” he called a song, where no similarities could be found with known Church Music. It became the Hall, which was the Church for a moment. The room changed in the blast of another world.
A superior figure, Jimi Hendrix, who gets the music and the picture to fuse together in one big connection, where time is infinite."

IFORMATION - ‘Elektrisk Hendrixland’ :

“Maybe he has realised that those people who buy his records attend the concerts to hear his music. Maybe he‘s just been too busy playing to find time for those gimmicks which, compared to his music, seem out of place. In any case there were only very few attempts to fuss and show of sexually, and each time it was like he thought better of it and concentrated even more on his music. With good reason. Because it was really important what he was doing: both very traditional (like the blues ‘Red House’) and also the independent exploration of electronics as a medium for rhythmic music. To hear the second, last part of the concert which I think was named ‘Electric Church Music’ and was an almost indescribable tonal switchback with squeals, slips and brakings was to explore an unknown land of music. No wonder that Hendrix most of the time was wrapped up in his discoveries.”
Electric Hendrixland
The other day I said that Jimi Hendrix’s two previous concerts in Denmark, were not the best publicity for his records. It is also my impression that most Hendrix fans until now have preferred to hear him on vinyl, where one has not been disturbed from gimmicks, which disfigured his first concerts.
But in Falkoner Centret yesterday evening it was different (at least the first show, which I write about). Maybe Hendrix has realized that when he can get sold out concerts without any advertising, it is not necessary with that sort of gimmicks to attract people. Maybe he has realized that those people, who buy his records, attend the concerts to hear his music. Maybe he just have been to busy playing, that he cannot find the time for those gimmicks, which compared to his music, seem to be out of place.
In any case there were only a very few attempts to fuss an sexual show-off, and each time it was like he thought better of it, and concentrated even more on his music. With good reason. Because it is really important what he was doing: a both very traditional (like the blues “Red House”) and also independent exploration of the electronic as a medium for rhythmic music.
There is a fundamental difference on this kind of electronic amplifying of guitar music, which was introduced into jazz thirty years ago, and which was thought to bring the guitar at the same level as the horn instruments - and Hendrix’s use of the instrument more or less makes it a combination of a sound generator and an amplifier, where it is the electric amplification with tone that it depends on. He is not the only person who works in that direction (fx. Eric Clapton and Larry Coryell), but he is without comparison the one who does it with most consistency, fantasy, and virtuosity. To hear the second part of the concert - which I think was named “Electric Church Music” was an almost indescribable tonal switchback with squeals, slips, and brakings - was to explore an unknown land of music. No wonder that Hendrix most of the time was completely wrapped up in his discoveries.
Still it is probably an assumption for the utilization of the noise effects, that the loudspeakers are turned so loud, that Hendrix’s two very good partners, the bass player Noel Redding and the drummer Mitch Mitchell, almost drown, and the audience almost get their ear drums blown out (how can the musicians themselves stand the noise?). Not only in consideration to ones future ability to hear, but also of musical reasons, one can look forward to the day when Hendrix get his volume turned down.
Already now his music seems to be the most interesting instrumentally going on on the beat scene, and maybe not only there. That is why it felt right, that his vocal only had a minor role, and so inferior that one hardly could hear it.
With Hendrix ringing in the head it is almost impossible to turn back to the first section of the concert, with Jethro Tull...Jethro Tull...The thing one wonders about when writing these last lines, is something completely different: whether another year has to pass before we can see a concert with Jimi Hendrix again. After yesterday’s concert, it would be hard to accept."

JYLLANDS-POSTEN - ‘Electric Feelings’ by ‘T.T.’:
An expectant audience greeted the Jimi Hendrix Experience with enormous applause, which was immediately returned with an ear splitting roar from the loudspeakers - it was Jimi, who started with the rock ‘n’ roll classic “Johnny B. Goode.” It was a direct assault, which unfortunately lost some of its impact due to technical problems during the next two songs. One a Cream composition and the other “Red House” from their first album. The problems were [temporarily] solved and Jimi Hendrix seemed immediately relaxed when he said that they would turn up the volume - so that the people with weak ears had to leave. Nobody did, but several lifted their hands to their ears when “Fire” was played at a volume close to the pain tolerance level.
Body cleaning
The intensity which was missing earlier, was now established and when the very powerful song “Woo Doo Chile” [sic] was played, everything was perfect. Bass and drums combined in a massive wall of sound which entered your body, and cleaned out every inch completely. Next to follow was “Foxy Lady,” which pressed you into your chair, and you were sure this was a successful trip, for it would lead you far into the other world. It was the sophisticated song “Spanish Castle Magic” which carried you away. One forgot time and place completely, gliding into Jimi Hendrix Experience’s pleasant world of sounds. The concert ended with another version of “Woo Doo Chile” [actually ‘My Train A Coming’], and with a blessed smile on your lips you could leave the Falkoner Centret half dancing, half flying, and with a feeling that you had certainly seen one of the beat generation’s
super groups for sure.”
Aggressive group
Before this climax of the night, one had witnessed the English blues-group Jethro Tull keeping the audience spell bound, with a mixture of modern blues music and a wild and freaked stage performance, which made their music very aggressive. It is a shame that the blues purists will not accept this splendid music. Ian Anderson is absolutely the force in the group... Jethro Tull review ...