The New York Rock Festival (Singer Bowl, Flushing Meadow Park) : 23 août 1968

The New York Rock Festival (Singer Bowl, Flushing Meadow Park) : 23 août 1968

Titres :

1. Are You Experienced
2. Fire
3. Red House
4. I Don’t Live Today
5. Foxy Lady
6. Like A Rolling Stone
7. Purple Haze
8. The Star Spangled Banner
9. Hey Joe
10. Wild Thing

Photos Backstage de ce concert ICI

Source : Historic Concert (1994 Midnight Beat CD017)

Le concert est complet et sans cuts. Nous sommes en présence d’un enregistrement audience de très bonne qualité, avec une très bonne balance. On entend très bien les trois instruments, sans trop de distorsion, la voix de Jimi est cependant un peu forte et étouffée. A noter que les morceaux s’enchaînent sans pratiquement aucun temps mort sur le Cd.

Are You Experienced
Dès le début du concert, c’est l’hystérie dans le public, en tous cas auprès du preneur de son où on entend très nettement des cris de délire. Jimi rencontre très rapidement des problèmes de justesse et se raccorde avant le solo.

Fire
Le son est bien meilleur. Exécuté sur un tempo assez rapide, le morceau se déroule sans surprise, avec Noel aux backing. Jimi est accordé. Le solo est très court, identique à la version studio, mais le chant ne reprend pas immédiatement, après quelques secondes de flottement un court solo inédit démarre, et enfin la chanson se termine de manière habituelle.

Jimi se raccorde soigneusement avant une très bonne version de Red House, avec un chant très soigné et de long solos improvisés. La section rythmique assure et nous gratifie d’un break basse/batterie en milieu de morceau suivi d’un bon passage à la Wha Wha. Le public semble très satisfait.

I Don’t Live Today
La guitare est mixée en avant et nos trois compères ont un peu de mal à se synchroniser par moment. L’équilibre entre les trois instruments est rétabli de forte belle manière après le break central, ce qui nous donne au final une bonne version du morceau.

Foxy Lady
Quelques problèmes de justesse ici, et cela empire tout au long du titre, ce qui rend son écoute assez difficile.

Like A Rolling Stone
C’est sur une guitare raccordée que Jimi continue son show avec cette reprise de Bob Dylan, dans une version assez proche de ce qu’on entendra à Winterland quelques mois plus tard. La prise de son est maintenant très bonne, la batterie et la basse s’entendent très nettement.

Jimi annonce ensuite Purple Haze, ce qui fait hurler ses groupies. En intro, on a le droit à quelques passages de “Exp”, Mitch est en super forme. Le solo, dont une partie est jouée avec les dents, et la fin du titre sont assez sauvages, comme souvent.

Star Spangled Banner
Très courte (38’) et jouée avec les dents, c’est en fait le final de Purple Haze. A noter que c’est le second enregistrement public connu de ce titre (après Columbia du 16 août)

Après quelques raccordages, le groupe entame Hey Joe avec une longue intro façon Winterland. A noter que le morceau est dédicacé aux Village people et à… Tim Rose. La qualité du son s’est dégradée, même si l’ensemble reste équilibré. Le public semble très dissipé surtout lors du premier couplet.

Jimi prend soin de nouveau de se raccorder avant Wild Thing, sans pré-intro particulière style Monterey. Noël assure ses backing tant bien que mal, le solo débute avec "Strangers in The night" et tout cela se termine par un déluge de notes avec de nouveau "The Star Spangled Banner", complètement détaché de ce que joue Noel. La guitare semble comme souvent souffrir le martyr.

Au final, c’est un groupe appliqué et bien rodé qui a joué ce soir là devant 18 000 personnes. Le concert n’est pas inoubliable, loin de là, mais Jimi semblait en bonne forme, en milieu de sa tournée américaine marathon de 1968.

THE NEW YORK TIMES - by Robert Shelton:

“There was an air of tenseness surrounding the New York Rock Festival Friday night at Singer Bowl in Flushing Meadows Park, Queens. An overflow audience of 18,000 turned out to hear Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Chambers Brothers and the Soft Machine.
The previous festival meeting, on Aug. 2, ended with a chair throwing melee, so everyone was braced for trouble, although it never developed. About 70 special guards failed to report and several dozen city policemen were called in. Matters were not helped by cramming in an additional 1,000 standees. Many of the ushers didn’t have a clue as to where the numbered seats were, and were surly about their ignorance. Glaring stadium lights during most of the evening heightened the crisis atmosphere.
The announcer, Scott Muni, skillfully kept the proceedings some what tranquilized. There were three attempts by individuals to charge onto the stage, but matters were quickly put under control.
The evening’s star, Mr. Hendrix, gave an exciting performance with his trio, but he marred it with a concluding violent onslaught, ramming his guitar through the fabric of a loudspeaker. When are such rock stars as Mr. Hendrix and the Who going to realize such twisted showmanship is unhealthy and unnecessary?
Apart from Mr. Hendrix’s segment, the evening was not distinguished musically. The Chambers Brothers, showing up late again, continue to rely on their three or four routine rousers. They clearly need to broaden their material.
That great singer, Miss Joplin, was not in top form. She was not mixing too well with her quartet, Big Brother and the Holding Company....
Apart from his furious finale, Mr. Hendrix continues to be one of the most compelling performers working these days. His blues wailing and his guitar virtuosity are unparalleled, and his extroverted showmanship is a brilliant form of total musical theatre. But, again, why tear the theater down?”

THE VILLAGE VOICE by Annie Fisher:

“That the house is Jimi Hendrix’s is clear the minute he comes in sight, with that funny, private, oddly modest bearing he has when he’s not playing. Audience is up and shouting. He wipes his nose with a Confederate flag. The monster lights are finally dimmed. The lazy-susan is backside to us for the first two numbers. Our turn, we get a slow blues, groovy....
He’s getting better than $500 a minute for this show, one hour, and that’s not an inflated price. He’s worth it. But he shouldn’t be playing this date. Rock outside is a gas, but stadium concerts should be left to groups like the Rascals or the Four Seasons, not anyone who has original musical ideas.
We get another good look at the back of the equipment as they do ‘Foxey Lady.’ Then they revolve back to us. A kid who’s been sitting quietly on the steps of the stage (what are those kids doing there anyway!) unexpectedly dashes onto the carousel. The house lights blast back on. In a flash two equipment men get him back to the steps. Mike Jeffery, Hendrix’s manager, who hasn’t been visible all night, and Jerry Stickles his road manager, who has been in his usual beleaguered pose, are instantly at the foot of the steps. The music never stops. The kid lies down. Stickles wants him off-stage altogether. Kid protests angrily... Cop pulls kid off, a little force there. I’m looking back at the carousel to see how the musicians are faring... So I miss what happens next. Horrified, the girl next to me says, ‘My God, all those cops on that one kid!’
Awful things are happening at another corner of the stage, in the audience. It’s the same kid, and I see a cop, among what look like three dozen solid, forcing the kid to the ground by using a nightstick some way on his shoulders... As suddenly as it started it’s all over, a phalanx of uniforms hustling out the musicians’ entrance, the kid apparently in the middle, the barricade apparently back in place....
So the question is now whether Jimi will go ahead with his freak-out climax. Earlier he had eaten his guitar. Yeah, he finishes it off, a sort of subdued version, charging his equipment - guitar neck first, carefully deflecting so as not to really bust the speakers or his axe, then squatting obscene across the axe, merry-go-round-round- round-round-round. For what? He’s a genius - what’s he need that corn for? You don’t really think he plays with tongue and teeth, do you? After all, you’ve seen him hold his guitar at arm’s length and play one-handed with his fingers on the neck.
Well, it sells a lot of seats to people who could care less about the music (they ate it up on Friday!), and if there’s plenty of music going down besides there’s really nothing wrong with selling seats if you weren’t born so affluent you can disdain what money can buy if Mummy can’t.
Anyway, it’s a put-on and I think he probably has fun doing it and sharing the fun - if you’re experienced, Of course, it doesn’t have anything to do with the music, because Jimi Hendrix is a genius”

RAT SUBTERRANEAN NEWS :

“What was expected to be the super-show of the summer.. .turned out instead to be only the most vulgarly sensational and poorly managed....
The major problem was the entire concept of the theater-in-the- round staging. The whole stage would revolve, sometimes in the middle of a number, throwing the performers off-balance and preventing the ‘backstage’ half of the audience from seeing. This was especially painful during the Jimi Hendrix Show (SEE him pluck out America The Beautiful on the guitar with His Teeth! SEE him fuck his guitar before your unbelieving eyes! SEE him Shake That Thing!). And as a finale you’ll watch in horror and amazement as Jimi attacks the amplifiers with the neck of his guitar! (Cheap Trills should have been reserved as the trademark for the Jimi Hendrix Experience)... You could hear shrieks and other weird response from the other side of the stadium and you knew he was doing SOMETHING (dirty) but all you could see was the wall of amps.
The police were another obstacle. They were out in force as usual, concentrated in groups around the stage. At the beginning of the concert, a beefy woman who looked like a police matron or a washer- woman circulated among the cops, dispensing wads of cotton from a huge ball, which they quickly stuffed in their ears. They weren’t going to let any of that evil music get in to confuse their minds. Later, they proved that nothing had gotten through by almost starting a riot after roughing up some kid who rushed on stage to get close to Hendrix. The pigs massed four deep along one side of the stage while the audience in the area flashed V-signs and hurled small objects, united in a feeling against a common enemy for a common music.
The show itself was a little too familiar. Everyone did their usual thing... Hendrix put on a deja vu performance with one exception. That was his version of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ which, while not fantastic, was strong and made me re-appreciate Dylan’s song and Hendrix’s voice. Mainly, it was a departure from the established Hendrix program, which needs some departures. Axis: Bold As Love is a fine second album, showing Jimi knows how to move forward and not just stand still like a hummingbird.. proving he can do something besides overblown supersongs like ‘Purple Haze.’ Hendrix is justly proud of this progress in his sound and we can expect a further step in the new album, but in concert he seems frozen at some point in time a year or two ago. Soul on ice.”

BILLBOARD - by Fred Kirby:

“New York - The Aug. 23 program of the New York Rock and Roll Festival at Singer Bowl more than lived up to advance billing as the The Jimi Hendrix Experience gave one of it’s finest local performances to date to complete the strong programme. The lack of serious technical problems is what made Hendrix, always an exciting performer, even better than in many previous local appearances. As the Reprise trio took time to set up, Hendrix promises to ‘make it up in spades.’ He apparently was referring to his previous New York appearance at Fillmore East [10 May] when constant static hindered an otherwise fine effort.
His bluesy singing was first rate; his guitar playing, superb, and his stage presence, electric. From the opening ‘Are You Experienced?’ every number hit the mark. An unusual aspect of the set was the singing along by members of the audience. At first, this was only slight, but by the time the group hit ‘Purple Haze’ it was widespread. A minor disturbance during ‘Hey Joe’ didn‘t interrupt a strong wailed version. The disturbance however resulted in the lights being turned up. Hendrix, with superb aplomb, asked the audience to join with him in singing ‘Wild Thing’. Hendrix ended this final number with guitar playing of other themes, including a wrong-note ‘Star Spangled Banner’. Among the other good numbers were ‘Foxy Lady’, ‘Fire’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’.
Hendrix, one of the top echelon of today’s pop guitarists, stole the show. The vastness of Singer Bowl seemed congenial to the trio’s highly amplified sound. Whether erect or on the floor, calm or physically assaulting the amplifiers, his playing was outstanding. And Hendrix, who has jammed with many other groups, clearly relishes playing, especially as well as he played on Aug. 23.”

J'adore cette série de photos, surtout qu'il avait la super pêche ce soir-là et le film le prouve surtout avec "Are You Experienced?"

Merci Mousme !

Merci également pour les photos. Je les aime bien également car (petit plaisir perso) ma strat est de la même couleur.
Des fois il faut pas grand chose pour être content.

Photos backstage de ce concert ICI