The best band Jimi Hendrix ever saw live: “We were pinching ourselves”
It’s tough to imagine Jimi Hendrix being starstruck by anyone. As a guitarist, he’s held up as the absolute gold standard, worshipped not only by fans throughout history but by the peers who surrounded him at the time. However, one of the most beautiful things about Hendrix was his deep love for music as an appreciator, not just a maker. When it came to one band, he declared them the best live troupe he’d ever seen after an electrifying night in the crowd.
It’s a heartwarming image to think about Hendrix nestled in the anonymity of an audience, standing in the dark, watching the stage with the rest of the music fans. Hendrix’s vocal support for the other acts he admired is a moving reminder that the craft should never take away the original love and passion for music that started an artist down the path of music-making. It’s a reminder that even at the top, it’s important to pause for a moment and reconnect with the spark that started it and head out to see some live music with the rest of the crowd.
For Hendrix, listening to music seemed to be a crucial part of his music-making process, given that he would routinely perform covers of other artists’ songs after seeing them play or hearing their albums. It was clearly important to him to remain plugged into the other goings-on in the broader music world. So, one night at the Whisky A Go Go in Los Angeles, he was doing precisely that when he discovered a band that blew him away.
At the time, Chicago were little more than the bar house band, as the group were only just getting started. Their drummer, Danny Seraphine, recalled, “We’d already started making noise at The Whisky as a house band. This was all before we got a record deal.”
He continued, “We’d heard that Hendrix might be out in the audience but weren’t sure”. Instead, they simply played their show as they always did, trying not to be intimidated by the possibility of a legend in their midst.
“Then we walked offstage and there he was in our dressing room,” Seraphine remembered. That would be enough to write home about, but then Hendrix levelled it up by bestowing huge praise on the group. “He said, ‘You guys are the best band I’ve ever heard in my life!’”
“I mean, talk about a compliment!” Seraphine said, which feels like an understatement. For music makers everywhere, the concept of a compliment from Hendrix feels like receiving word from God. But to get a compliment where the player was positioning Chicago as the best, as if picking them up and placing them immediately on a higher level, not only as his peer but as a kind of superior, made the band’s head spin.
“It was like, ‘Wow!’ We were pinching ourselves after they left saying, ‘did that really happen?’” Seraphine continued. But Hendrix wasn’t kidding them. He didn’t just say the compliment because the band were in front of him and then wander off into his life unphased. Instead, time and time again the guitarist shouted out and spotlighted the group.
“I heard he was asked in one interview, ‘How does it feel to be the best guitar player in the world?’ And he said, ‘I’m not, Terry Kath is,’” he recalled, thinking back to another time when Hendrix praised the band’s guitarist.
“Terry’s mind was blown hearing about this because Jimi was his guitar hero,” he said, as their running in with the legend seemed to be the gift that kept on giving, keeping them on a high.
After that chance run-in at the Whisky, Hendrix proved himself a music fan at their best as he remained kind, encouraging and excited about the band. It was genuine as the guitarist proved that his compliment wasn’t just empty words but a true and sincere reaction. When Hendrix later passed away, the band he loved penned a moving tribute to his memory in the form of ‘Oh Thank You Great Spirit’. For Chicago, the whole interaction is proof that maybe sometimes you should meet your idols.
