This live concert performance of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, captured just five days before the US release of Are You Experienced, their album debut, is notable for being one of the last times the band performed in front of an audience as relative unknowns.

Having already conquered the band’s UK base as well as Continental Europe over the previous ten months, the vast majority of the 17,000 plus Los Angeles concert goers were there to see headliners The Mamas & The Papas and were caught off guard by Jimi Hendrix’s electrifying musicality and showmanship.

Finally, the set can be enjoyed by the rest of the world for the first time ever; amazingly, not a single second of this unique, two-track live recording has ever been released before in any capacity, either via official channels or elsewise.

Side A:
1. Introduction
2. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
3. Killing Floor
4. The Wind Cries Mary
5. Foxey Lady
6. Catfish Blues

Putting the vinyl on the record player, this raw and stunningly captured live album opens on a brief KHJ Radio Introduction (“Are ready for a groovy night?”) and then the lead off song from the recording is brought forth in the form of a heartily dutiful rendition of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which is followed by their frenetic cover of the Howlin’ Wolf cut Killing Floor, a smooth as silk The Wind Cries Mary, a storm-swirling Foxey Lady, and then comes their low slung blues version of Muddy Waters’ Catfish Blues.

Side B:
7. Fire
8. Like a Rolling Stone
9. Purple Haze
10. Wild Thing

Flipping the vinyl album over, along next is an explosive Fire, which is itself backed seamlessly by the pop-rock hipsway of Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone, the set rounding out on a blistering, foot to the floor Purple Haze, closing on an overdose of sexual fulfillment that veritably pulsates throughout The Troggs’ Wild Thing.

The majority of the crowd had purchased tickets months in advance to see The Mamas & The Papas and were wholly unfamiliar with the jarringly different Jimi Hendrix Experience. Brian Ray, future guitarist for Paul McCartney and Etta James, was among the audience members transfixed by what they witnessed. “The audience was there to see The Mamas & The Papas,” recalls Ray. “They haven’t heard of Jimi Hendrix. I’d never heard of Jimi Hendrix, and he couldn’t be more opposite of The Mamas & The Papas as an act, culturally, physically, in every possible way he was the opposite. Here comes this guy and there’s only three of them on stage and they have these afros and these wild, ornate, very theatrical clothes. Jimi proceeds to shred, and it’s loud but it’s musical, and then it becomes so physical. He starts playing the guitar under his leg, and now it’s behind his back, and now he’s playing it with his mouth, and now he’s on the ground on his knees and he’s like humping it, and it, to me was mind blowing.”

“It was sort of every human characteristic; it was beauty, grace, it was sexual, violent, gentle, it was just everything all at once in one band coming out of this one guy. I wouldn’t say that the audience response was quite the same as the response I was having. My sister and I were going bananas, and the audience was like [soft clapping] and they were trying to figure it out.”

The Experience Hendrix team of Janie Hendrix, John McDermott and Eddie Kramer prepared this special album for its release. Kramer, Hendrix’s long standing recording engineer, recently restored the audio, and three-time Grammy Award winner Bernie Grundman served as mastering engineer.

Jimi Hendrix Experience: Hollywood Bowl August 18, 1967 will be available on CD as well as audiophile grade, individually numbered (US pressings only), 150 gram vinyl, complete with many previously unseen photos by Ed Caraeff, Henry Diltz and Allen Daviau from that night. These include performance shots as well as candid backstage images of band members with The Mamas & The Papas, and manager Chas Chandler.

“Originally we were supposed to have been in America for three weeks,” remembered Experience bassist Noel Redding. “We ended up staying three months that summer and that made us in America.”

Musicians:
Jimi Hendrix: Guitar, Lead Vocals
Mitch Mitchel: Drums
Noel Redding: Bass, Backing Vocals

Official Purchase Links

www.JimiHendrix.com