Incredible performance somewhat inspired by bill graham who got after him for a bit about his showmanship at the expense of musicianship. Hendrix then went on stage played almost stock still without his usual circus act moves.
The band of gypsies album is a result. The pinnacle of his live recordings that was actually well recorded. I’ve heard better Hendrix solos off cassette recordings but they are almost unlistenable.
Graham says that Hendrix’s first set on the second night was in fact a disappointing reversion to his showbiz stunts. When Hendrix asked him during intermission what he thought of the set, Graham was brutally frank.
“I said, ‘You’re Jimi Hendrix, and anything you do is taken as gospel because of who you are,’” says Graham. “‘In the first show, you humped the guitar, you played it with your teeth, you stuck it behind your back. You just forgot to play.’” Stunned, Hendrix went back out onstage for the second show and played. The incandescent version of “Machine Gun” on the 1970 live LP Band of Gypsys was recorded during that show.
After the second show, Graham raced backstage to congratulate Hendrix. “He came over, totally drained, full of sweat from top to bottom, right up to my face, and said, ‘All right, motherfu—er? That good enough for you? You gonna let me go now?’” Hendrix then wheeled around back on to the stage for his encore and did, in Graham’s words, “fifteen minutes of the greatest shtick you’d ever want to see” – grinding up against his Strat, picking it with his teeth, the works. Having proved to Graham and the Fillmore crowd the true depth of his musical gift, Hendrix returned to the stage to show ’em all, one more time, that he was still one of rock’s greatest showmen.
“At one point, he looked to the side of the stage and stuck his tongue out at me,” Graham laughs. “It was very, very funny.”