Genius at the top of his game

Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969

This two-hour live set – recorded two months before the Experience broke up – is about as laidback as a text from Gavin Williamson.

The tension between the 15,000-plus capacity crowd and the LA cops in front of the stage is audible, reflecting the political mood of the times.

To diffuse it, Hendrix warns the rowdy audience that venue management will “cut the show short” if they don’t calm down and he jokingly changes the lyrics of Purple Haze to “Excuse me while I kiss that policeman”.

The Experience – Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding – had been together for less than three years. Drugs and acclaim had skewered their personal relationships but musically they were more cohesive than Hendrix’s subsequent group Band Of Gypsys as this set, remixed from the original eight-track masters, shows.

They open with a punchy instrumental version of Stone Free, renamed Tax Free.

The striding beat introduces waves of wah-wah guitar as Jimi effortlessly soars into extended solos for 15 minutes

34 seconds, pausing only for Mitch’s drum solo.

Foxy Lady sounds insane, impossibly heavier than the 1967 original. Then come the slow blues of Red House, a mid-tempo Spanish Castle Magic, a 150-second riff on the Star Spangled Banner, a ferocious Purple Haze and I Don’t Live Today.

They close with Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) interspersed with Cream’s Sunshine Of Your Love.

Hendrix is phenomenal, playing with versatility, emotional depth and eloquence. His notes come in rolling clusters, the high leads sending shivers down the spine.

No one before Jimi played the electric guitar like he did and no one who followed him ever changed it so much.

By the time he died, aged 27 in 1970, the Seattle-born star had released just three studio albums.

His stage flamboyance and sexual charge often made people forget his musical genius.