“What a fucking waste!”: The night Jimi Hendrix burned across the British seaside
Despite being born and raised in Seattle, there was always a sense that Jimi Hendrix’s spiritual home was in the UK. Overwhelmingly, he felt like a descendant of the British rock scene, and so when he made his home in London in 1966, it made sense.
In the US, Hendrix felt misunderstood; he’d spent years playing in R&B bands and felt relegated to that realm and that realm only, as despite rock and roll being a direct product of Black artists, the start of the new wave had seen it get whitewashed over in the States. And so then, people couldn’t seem to see Hendrix as a rockstar but only a blues slinger, or a backing man providing guitar licks to standards.
It was the UK scene that first noticed how much more potential there was there. After Keith Richards saw Hendrix play in New York, word of the guitarist spread widely around the British pack, with Richards especially gunning for the artist and recommending him to the best managers and producers in London town. Eventually, it was the Animals’ ex-bassist Chas Chandler who finally locked him in, flying him over to London, where Hendrix would end up staying.
It made perfect sense. Hendrix already loved the Stones, and when he met Eric Clapton upon his arrival, he loved that whole rock scene too. Mostly though, he really, really loved The Beatles, proving that best when he learnt ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ the very night it was released to cover it at one of his shows.
Despite being American-born, it felt like he was musically British at heart, yet so many of the most immortalised moments in Hendrix’s career happened Stateside, like the iconic rendition of the country’s national anthem at Woodstock, but the UK was often the scene of his wildest moments, like in March 1967, when he first set his guitar ablaze at the Finsbury Park Astoria in London. That first time, he made it happen with the collusion of his manager and a journalist, as they wanted to launch Hendrix with a boom and a flash.
But later on, in the random spot of Hastings, he did it again. While the first might have been a stunt, the image of the burning Stratocaster came to mean something to Hendrix, representative of the kind of demon he felt came over him when he played. So even at Hastings Pavilion, in the small seaside spot, it took over, and in October 1967, he burnt his guitar once again.
Only this time, it wasn’t in front of a spangled audience of London music types. This time, it was in front of a crowd of average Joe fans coming down to see the new name for the first time. The response? ‘What a waste!’
Recalling the event, Peter Gladwish was one of the punters in the crowd, stating, “I remember this event very well. Jimi was straddling his guitar on the stage about six feet in front of me, when he poured lighter fuel on it and set it alight.”
While the image has become endlessly iconic, Gladwish wasn’t all that impressed, remembering, “Not being able to afford a Strat at the time, I remember thinking, ‘What a fucking waste!’”
The image of Hendrix setting his most valued tool alight is a powerful image, and it is one that is seared into our collective consciousness. Hendrix kneeling down to the burning instrument and praying like he is at an altar. But he didn’t perform the act as many times as you might think. So while it might have been a waste of a guitar, it was a crystalline moment that lasts in the memories of those who saw it for a lifetime.
