Göteborg (Lorensbergs Cirkus): 4 janvier 1968 [Premier concert]

Göteborg (Lorensbergs Cirkus): 4 janvier 1968 [Premier concert]

Titres :

1. Foxy Lady
2. The Wind Cries Mary
3. Fire
4. Hey Joe
5. Come On
6. Purple Haze

ARBETARBLADET (‘Workers Paper’?) ‘Jimi Hendrix tame in Sandviken’, ‘The idol with arm in bandage’ – review by Alf Lundkvist:

“If there was something ‘mysterious’ with Jimi Hendrix’ drinks in Gothenburg, which according to his own view, was partly why he smashed thousands of crowns worth of furniture in a hotel room. He himself was a far cry from being okay at the performance in Sandviken this Friday night. It was an extremely subdued, perhaps also ‘down’ pop idol, with one arm in a bandage from going berserk in Gothenburg, that took to the Jernvallen stage.
When the greats of the pop world visit Sweden, Sandviken in general gets a slice of the pie, thanks to Högbo GIF. The British [sic] pop singer Jimi Hendrix’ performance at Jernvallen was experienced by around 1,200 youths. For the audience in Sandviken, Jimi Hendrix’ show turned into a disappointment. The speedy tempo that made him world-renowned was missing this evening. Was it perhaps the incident the day before in Gothenburg that had the singer going on idle? During his visit to Gothenburg Jimi Hendrix ran amok in a hotel and caused several thousand crowns worth of damage. The police took his passport and he was obliged to report every day. The pop singer was still allowed to make his way over to Copenhagen and go through with his show. The tour manager Eddie Larson commented on the incident to the Arbetarbladet in this way: ‘Jimi Hendrix explains his actions in Gothenburg with being very intoxicated. We have never seen him like this before. Jimi was exhausted, down and his nerves were on edge. Booze on top of that hardly improved on the situation. The incident is now rectified. Hendrix can however expect being charged for the damages.’

Unskilled guitarist
It was to big cheers and great expectations the pop singer and his two accompanists entered the Jernvallen. But from the first moment you noticed that all wasn’t well with Hendrix this night. The guitars were out of tune and at first there were short intermissions between songs. Jimi Hendrix is as you know not handsome to behold, but no one can deny his skills as a guitarist. A bandage on his right wrist that told about the incident in Gothenburg didn’t improve his guitar playing. All in all the expectations went up in smoke, but the young audience could comfort itself with the fact that Sandviken yet one more time had had one of the greats visiting.

Lightshow interrupted
The whole evening was psychedelic, with two Swedish pop groups as openers. Mecki Mark Men, one of the most interesting groups to emerge in Sweden last year, were disappointed with their show at the Jernvallen. Their intentions were to put on a psychedelic lightshow, which was almost immediately cancelled.
The house was put into darkness and Mecki Mark Men performed solely in the light from a projector with coloured lenses, with light beams slowly sweeping across the band. The lightshow was interrupted, however, as it was deemed unhealthy for the young audience. Mecki Mark Men’s manager Michael Sallberg said afterwards, “I feel sorry for the audience. The whole performance of Mecki Mark Men was ruined this way. Our lightshow has never been cancelled before.

Calm evening
It was a calm and well-behaved audience attending the show. Only incident was when a few kids broke the lock of the hand-ball locker-door, and some kids also sneaked in without paying admission. The show started with the Stockholm group Baby Grandmothers, who unfortunately were of low quality.”

EXPRESSEN - interview
Jimi: “I will perform in Stockholm and on Tuesday I will be back in Gothenburg to clear up this incident.
Something like this has never happened before [....] Someone must have put some kind of tablet in my glass, otherwise I would never have become like that.
[...] Everything has gone so fast, I have never had a chance to relax [...] I want peace and quiet and maybe write the pop musical I have in mind.”

EKSTRA BLADET - ‘”Jeg var bare fuld”
”I Was Just Drunk.”.Says Jimi Hendrix about the vandalism-episode in Sweden’] – report by Carsten Grolin: “Jimi Hendrix has a reputation of being a violent, impulsive man, who burn guitars on stage, sleeps with them, and lastly, steps on them. Now, he has got the reputation of being an ungovernable man off-stage, after the just mentioned furniture smashing episode at a Swedish hotel the other day.
But in reality Jimi Hendrix is a gentle, friendly, and chatty guy, who would not harm a cat, but just wants to sit and dream his Technicolor- and stereo-dreams, from where he gets his inspiration. You can sit with him for several hours, as I did last Saturday, and talk nicely. Then suddenly, his expression [face] disappears, and he is gone into a dream, just to return and tell a fabulous story about –
Jimi: ‘[I had a dream about two little dancers dressed in white, that‘s possibly going to be a new track on the next (Jimi Hendrix Experience’) album.]’
When asked about the furniture smashing he says -
Jimi: ‘Man, I was just drunk. That can happen to anybody. But because you throw a couple of things through a window in a sudden madness, it doesn’t hit the front pages. That is the hard side of being a public person. You can’t rock your ears without somebody making a story out of it.’
- With the exception of a gash with six stitches and a row of missing buttons, Hendrix had forgotten the episode due to his –
Jimi: ‘[I have stereo-dreams, which are all about writing modern mythology about the Earth, Space, eternity and closeness in an LP-form.] I have also thought about changing our stage-act completely, In future, I will present a stage play with colours, which is going to play one part, dancers, and other groups, who are going to play different parts. And we will play different parts, either with or without instruments. I would like to have Procol Harum with me. They look like a troop of Shakespeare-actors when they get on stage.’
- So we have this to look forward to.”
[Photo caption] Jimi Hendrix: - was just drunk...!

‘Sgt. Hendrix’ Pepperband’ – review by Carsten Grolin:
“All at once the audience appeared. The same audience, who in two days bought all the tickets and convinced everybody, that beat music is far from dead after all. They were there with rounds of applause like a hurricane, with expectations, with roars of enthusiasm that ran through the hall like a wave from the North Sea, even before the curtains went up. Jimi, Mitch and Noel were there with a barrage of noise, at least rivalling the roaring surf of the Atlantic Ocean. A soul-tearing current of tones, movements and sounds, which make one completely forget time and place, who one is and why one is, and on what planet one is. One even forgets to listen, because this music, or rather this enormous tension, as it can be described, doesn’t hit the ears. It hits the whole body and scours every inch. Right after, when the last heavenly trips, the last assaults of the guitar, bass and drums are over, one comes down completely exhausted with a blessed little smile. It was indeed Sgt. Hendrix’ Pepperband, that got us all singing along, though it was impossible to follow. But then this Beatles melody has never been heard in a more hypnotizing version. With a bang from what seemed to be a hundred amps into ‘Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire’, Hey Joe,’ the slow blues ‘Catfish,’ which got turned upside down for every possible fantastic nuance, gentle and hard with aggressive colour explosions from Jimi’s futuristic guitar, and a wild drum solo from Mitch ‘Wind Cries Mary,’ ‘Purple Haze,’ which really was purple, and the desperately, beautiful ‘Spanish Castle Magic’ and then Wild Thing which really was wild, and where Jimi made his guitar say ‘Thank You, Thank You’ to the audience. It was Indescribable, although the breaks between the songs at the first show last night were too long and brought down the intensity. The Experience can make that inexplicable intensity that Hendrix closely weaves, stand visible in the air, as well as in the breaks, when none of the instruments makes any noise. But then this is the secret of Hendrix’ guitar style - supposedly more those notes he doesn’t play, at the same time as the many he plays in one way or the other.
Page One had amplifier troubles, but performed nicely. Again, the Defenders were better than ever. And the Swedish duo, Hansson on organ without shoes, and Karlsson on drums, were an experience which would be nice to undergo again. Like the organist of the Nice, Hansson painted big sound-scapes on his organ, which looked like a lab and showed that the organ is on its way into the new free-form beat, because in the right hands it is able to do almost everything.”

GÖTEBORG’S TIDNINGEN (‘Gothenburg’s Newspaper’) ‘The Phenomenon Jimi Hendrix’ – review by Gösta Hanson:
“There are mainly two ways of listening to Jimi Hendrix. Either you gather your patience and try and seek out the incredibly skilled finer work Jimi displays amidst the ear- shattering underbrush of effects he tears out of his guitar. Or else you let go of all old ideas about how music is supposed to sound, and let the magician Mr. Hendrix guide you on enticing journeys amongst cascades of notes. Close your eyes and feel the music read even your little toes. But you couldn’t close your eyes yesterday when Jimi Hendrix held court at Cirkus. You had to look at Jimi Hendrix’ injured and bandaged hand, register his expressions when it hurt the most, I look at his undulating movements, half-obscene gestures and explicit mimicry. Talk about pop entertainment! He’s got self-irony, criticizing his own playing and bad sounding amplifiers with offhand comments. Among the numbers we got to hear, only a few were new since last time Mr. Hendrix gave us the honours. One number from the latest LP showed a new laid back style new to Jimi’s bundle of nerves. His first-and slightly overexposed-‘Hey Joe’ was given new dimensions. Now I seriously noticed how perfect Noel Redding’s and Mitch Mitchell’s righteous rock beat blends with Jimi Hendrix’ improvisations on guitar. Excellent comp-but Mr Mitchell doesn’t have to do a drum solo at every performance-it’s not all that exciting, after all. Three extra guitars leaned at the back of the stage. Were they extras in case Jimi Hendrix would turn overly violent on stage? The half-full first house gave polite applause, but the cheers were hardly overwhelming."

backstage