Watch Jimi Hendrix play at the Fillmore East in 1969
If you were a major rock artist in the 1960s, you needed to come through Bill Graham‘s Fillmore East. The legendary New York concert venue wasn’t particularly big – it held less than 3,000 people at its maximum capacity. But despite its small size, the Fillmore East wound up being the perfect venue for some of the most electric live performances of all time.
The great classic live albums recorded at the venue speak for themselves. The Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East, Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Quicksilver Messenger Services’ Happy Trails, Frank Zappa’s Fillmore East – June 1971, and a whole host of some of the finest live performances the Grateful Dead ever did, assembled onto albums like Skull and Roses and History of the Grateful Dead, Volume One (Bear’s Choice).
At the tail end of 1969, another familiar face walked into the comfy confines of the Fillmore East to record a new live album. Jimi Hendrix had played the Fillmore before with the Experience, but when he entered the venue, he had a new trio with him. Bassist Billy Cox had played with Hendrix at Woodstock, and new drummer/singer Buddy Miles was also involved. This group configuration had varying names, but as it was announced at the beginning of the performance, the band was going by ‘Band of Gypsys’ by this time.
The Fillmore East was an ideal setting for Hendrix. As he played his psychedelic-tinged funk rock, the Joshua Light Show projected swirls of colours and images around him and the band. It created quite a visual experience for both artist and crowd, and Hendrix’s fuzz-filled freak-outs rarely found a venue as sympathetic to his needs as the Fillmore East.
The concerts that the Band of Gypsys played across the end of 1969, turning into 1970, would eventually become the basis for Hendrix’s final album during his lifetime, Band of Gypsys. While introducing ‘Machine Gun’, Hendrix wishes the crowd a happy new year and expects “one or two million more of them if we can get over this summer”. Sadly, Hendrix himself wouldn’t make it that far.
In September of 1970, Hendrix died from drug-induced pulmonary aspiration while in London, passing away at the age of 27. Band of Gypsys would become one of Hendrix’s final statements during his lifetime, and his performances at the Fillmore East quickly entered into legend among fans and rock critics.
Check out Hendrix’s performance at the Fillmore East on New Year’s Eve down below.
