The story of Jimi Hendrix’s chaotic final gig in 1970
Legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix passed away in London when he was just 27, leaving behind a lasting legacy, even labelled as “the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music” by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In his short years, he released three albums with The Jimi Hendrix Experience, including Electric Ladyland, which featured his best-selling single ‘All Along the Watchtower’.
During the middle of 1970, Hendrix embarked on a European tour, which saw him play the Isle of Wight Festival, marking the beginning of a week of intensive touring, ending with his last ever gig. Hendrix had expressed a feeling of disillusionment in an interview published just a day before his final performance. He said: “I’m back right now to where I started. I’ve given this era of music everything. I still sound the same, my music’s still the same, and I can’t think of anything new to add to it in its present state…”
The week started off disastrously when bassist Billy Cox had his drink spiked with LSD, leading him to spiral into a near nervous breakdown. That week, the band’s series of gigs were filled with catastrophes — Hendrix had a cold and was mentally and physically exhausted, technical issues were rampant, and the weather wasn’t helping. Hendrix was also quoted saying, “I’m not sure I’ll live to be 28 years old. I mean, at the moment, I feel I have nothing more to give musically. I will not be around on this planet anymore unless I have a wife and children.” He was right, less than a month later, he was dead.
The band played in Arhus, Denmark, but the gig was cut short. However, they performed a much more successful gig in Copenhagen, all the while, drummer Mitch Mitchell was back and forth between countries as his wife gave birth. Yet on September 6th, 1970, Hendrix and the band would play their final concert at Fehmarn’s Open Air Love and Peace Festival in Germany.
The festival was teaming with bikers, with stagehand David Butcher recalling: “The Hell’s Angels were causing so much trouble – they were ransacking the office and giving free tickets to everybody. They weren’t in charge of security, but basically, they kind of took over, and there was a lot of trouble, including gunfire. Machine-gun fire. For a while afterwards, I wondered if we’d imagined it. But it was real.”
The weather was awful, and overcrowding was rife, another stagehand said: “If you think the Isle of Wight was a mess, you should have been to Fehmarn. […] Whoever built the stage was an idiot. There were gales, so the sea just kept blowing on stage.”
After a force-five gale and torrential rain cancelled Hendrix’s scheduled performance, he took to the stage the next day; Cox was still in a state of breakdown and paranoia. The German crowd were shouting for Hendrix to “get lost” whilst booing him — the musician just joined in, starting: “I don’t give a fuck if you boo, as long as you boo in tune, you mothers…”
The audience was soon won over when Hendrix played Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Killing Floor’ before transitioning into ‘Spanish Castle Magic’ and ‘All Along The Watchtower’. Butcher recalled: “The rain was coming in, and he was standing there, risking being electrocuted but just carrying on, you know? He didn’t move back from the front of the stage, he just carried on. It was quite amazing, really. […] I could see fights breaking out as Jimi approached the end of his set.”
Hendrix ended with the mighty ‘Voodoo Child (Slight Return)’, which features the final lines, “If I don’t see you no more in this world/I’ll meet you in the next one and don’t be late, don’t be late.”
Little did the musician know that would be his final gig – at a festival ransacked by bikers and ravaged by storms. Hendrix performed an informal jam at Ronnie Scott’s jazz bar in London ten days later, playing backing guitar quietly in the background, and just 48 hours later, he was dead.
