The Jimi Hendrix Experience

The Royal Albert Hall EXPERIENCE HENDRIX

Definitive audiovisual gig experience finally surfaces – premiered where it was filmed.

Considering it will soon be an incredible half-century since Jimi left the planet, this ‘holy grail’ of Hendrix movies couldn’t be better timed after almost taking that long to come to fruition. Shot around February 1969’s second Royal Albert Hall show, the film (then called Experience) got bogged down for decades in legal tangles, although a shoddy preview appeared on video in the 80s.

Vividly restored by original producer Jerry Goldstein, with sound remastered by Eddie Kramer, this is now as close as it can ever get to experiencing Hendrix’s still-unchallenged live impact and extraterrestrial charisma.

Unveiling a rough cut in the venerable building where the show took place is a fabulous touch (poignant for this writer, who attended the first 1969 gig, sitting over 50 years later with Mr Pike, the school teacher who organised its coach trip and attended the second gig).

After words from Janie Hendrix and Goldstein, it’s into a jaw-dropping Stone Free, Hendrix’s molten solo sending spine-tingles familiar from 50 years before; on fire for what would be his final indoor UK concert.

Maybe robbing some atmosphere in

’69, Goldstein floodlit the hall with house lights on, but that makes it possible to witness every grin, grimace or grointhrust as Hendrix powers through Foxy Lady, Red House and Voodoo Chile, between off-stage footage that starts with Mitch Mitchell en route in Rolls-Royce, and Hendrix playing Hound Dog to fawning females at his Brook Street abode, or relaxing post-show at the Speakeasy. Although little betrays the simmering inter-band tensions, Jimi has rarely been caught in such loose intimacy.

Adding to tonight’s gig atmosphere, an enthusiastic crowd of Hendrix veterans and younger fans applaud every flash of guitar genius, and guffaw at strangely gesticulating idiot dancers or the uniformed on-stage jobsworth staring rigidly at Jimi from behind his military moustache. After the set ends with Hendrix smashing his guitar after a stage invasion, the most memorable shot is an exhausted Jimi slumped alone in the dressing room, sadly shaking his head.

Although billed as “One Night Only”, this stunning historic work will inevitably be seen again. As it should. It’s the best Hendrix film yet. ■■■■■■■■■■