Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child Page #5

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and new arrangements and stuff like that.

So we have something to offer,

you know, something new.

I'm not sure how I feel about

The Experience now.

Maybe we could have gone on.

But what would have been the point?

What would it have been good for?

It's a ghost now, it's dead,

like back pages of a diary.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

I'll say hello to you again.

All right.

Dig, we'd like to get something straight,

we got tired of Experience

and it was blowing our minds too much,

so we decided

to change the whole thing around

and to call it Gypsy Sun and Rainbows.

For short it's nothing but a Band Of Gypsys.

What was the controversy

about the national anthem

and the way you played it?

I don't know, man, all I did was play it.

I'm American, so I played it.

I used to sing it at school,

they made me sing it at school, so...

It was a flashback, you know.

This man was in the 101st Airborne,

so when you write your nasty letters in...

Nasty letters? Why...

When you mention the national anthem

and talk about playing it

in any unorthodox way,

you immediately get

a guaranteed percentage of hate mail

- from people who say, "How dare...?"

- But that's not unorthodox.

- It isn't unorthodox?

- No, no.

I thought it was beautiful,

but then there you go, you know.

Everyone was amazed

at the absence of violence.

It's become a clich now about

that big festival and about the others.

- Were you surprised at it?

- I was glad, I was glad.

That's what it's all about,

you know.

Try to keep violence down,

keep them off the streets...

A festival of 500,000 people

was a very beautiful turnout, you know.

I hope we have more of them.

It was a success for the simple fact

that it was one of the largest

gatherings of people,

in the musical sense of it, you know.

It could have been arranged

a little more tighter

but it was a complete success, though,

compared to all the other festivals

everybody tried to knock here and there.

And the idea of people really listening to

music over the sky, in such a large body.

Everybody thinks that something's

gonna go haywire or something,

but that's always brought on

by the police, always, 'cause we play...

You said that this is a success

but there's 300,000 people,

isn't that pretty large

for it to really be a success?

It sure is and I'm glad it is a success.

What is your comment

on drug use at the festival?

I don't know, some people believe

that they have to do this

or do that to get into the music.

I don't know, I have no opinions at all.

Different strokes for different folks,

that's all I can say.

The Fillmore is proud to welcome back

some old friends with a brand-new name,

A Band of Gypsys.

We've been recording with my new group,

the Band of Gypsys.

It's a three-piece and we have

Buddy Miles on drums and Billy Cox on bass.

You can always sing about love

and different situations of love

but now we're trying to give solutions

to all the protests and arguments

that they're having about the world today.

I want to dedicate this to a scene

that's happening right now,

the soldiers of Vietnam.

We call it Machine Gun.

I dedicate it to the other people

that might be fighting wars

but within themselves,

not facing up to the realities.

We're working on songs

that are very hard

but that are very straightforward

and to the point.

We're trying to get the people

to listen to us, first of all.

Then we can say to them,

"Come follow us.

"Let's go knock down

the White House door. "

The frustrations and riots going on today

are all about personal things.

Everybody has wars within themselves

and it comes out as

war against other people.

That's all it is.

You can see how desperate

the whole case must be

if a kid's going to go out there

and get his head busted open.

I like to see these kids with helmets on

and then do their thing.

Some of them will say, "We don't have

nothing else to live for anyway.

"This is our scene now. "

I'm working on music to be completely,

utterly, a magic science,

where it's all pure positive.

The more doubt and negatives

you knock out of anything,

the heavier it gets

and the clearer it gets,

and the deeper it gets into

whoever is around it.

It gets contagious.

Don't mind us,

we just feel like playing to you.

We're playing for

the new rising sun.

Are You Experienced was where

my head was at a couple of years ago.

Now I'm into different things.

There's a need for harmony

between man and earth.

I think we're really screwing up

that harmony

by dumping garbage in the sea

and air pollution and all that stuff.

And the sun is very important.

It's what keeps everything alive.

The first rays of the new rising sun

is my new life.

The thing is you have to be positive,

you have to keep going until you have

all the negatives out of your system.

There is one thing

I hate about studios, usually,

and that is the impersonality of them.

Within a few minutes,

I lose all drive and inspiration.

Electric Lady is different,

I have done great things with this place.

It has been built

with great atmosphere and every comfort.

It makes people feel like they're at home.

It is capable of recording 32 tracks,

it has the best equipment in the world.

We have recorded a lot of material

and I hope the next single

will come out in six weeks.

The number most likely to be the A-side

is Dolly Dagger,

which is about a notorious lady.

When you first make it,

the demands on you are very great.

I don't try to live up to anything anymore.

The main thing

that used to bug me was

that people wanted

too many visual things from me.

When I didn't do it,

people thought I was being moody,

but I can only freak

when I really feel like doing so.

The moment I feel that I don't have

anything more to give musically,

that's when I won't be

found on this planet.

I'm not sure I will live to be 28 years old,

but then again so many beautiful things

have happened to me in the last three years,

the world owes me nothing.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

When the last American tour finished,

I just wanted to go away

and forget everything.

Then I started thinking,

thinking about the future,

thinking that this era of music,

sparked off by The Beatles,

had come to an end.

Something new has to come

and Jimi Hendrix will be there.

Kids listen with open minds

but I don't want to give them

the same things all the time.

I wanna keep doing fresh things,

I wanna show them all over again

what it's all about.

The "Isle of Wight" was great.

It's a fantastic place to have a show,

that brings the kids together

from not only the British Isle,

but also the whole of the continent.

- Yeah, right.

- Are you ready?

- Ask the road manager.

- Are we ready? Are we ready?

OK, ready.

Tell the MC to go, then.

A bit more volume on this one, Charlie.

It's gonna need it.

Let's have a welcome for Billy Cox on bass,

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