Review: The Jimi Hendrix Experience's 'Magic Boy: Live At Berkeley First Show'

On May 30, 1970, Jimi Hendrix played the Berkeley Community Theatre. Apparently fans who couldn't get into the sold-out show felt so slighted that some stormed the venue, smashing windows, climbing walls, and physically abusing their fellow Hendrix freaks. 

Hearing the performance 56 years later, it's hard to not kind of understand all that unacceptable behavior. Anyone without a ticket missed a manic, brilliantly performed show. Hendrix sings and plays with possessed power, making even hoary old warhorse "Johnny B. Goode" sound vital. It wasn't all his gig either. Mitch Mitchell punishes his kit with equal fire, and Billy Cox attacks his bass with the fuzzed ferocity and nimble ingenuity of John Entwistle. Seeing the band billed as "The Experience" without Noel Redding feels a bit disrespectful to the departed bass player. It also feels disrespectful to Cox because they sound like such a different band with such a different bassist. 

Review: 'Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision' Vinyl Box Set

After recording their masterpiece, 1968's Electric Ladyland, the Jimi Hendrix Experience began to fall apart. Noel Redding's departure hardly halted Hendrix from getting right back to work though. He set up shop in his newly constructed Electric Lady Studios in NYC with Mitch Mitchell and new bassist/old friend Billy Cox to work on a funkier, less trippy batch of songs, including fierce items like "Dolly Dagger", "Ezy Rider", and "Room Full of Mirrors" and gorgeous ones like "Angel" and "Drifting". The bulk of the sessions stretched from late 1969 through August 1970. 

Review: 'The Jimi Hendrix Experience-Live in Maui'

On August 1, 1970, Jimi Hendrix played a spur-of-the-moment free concert on a slapped together stage on a cattle ranch in Maui so filmmaker Chuck Wein could shoot some live footage to insert into an awful sounding Easy Rider rip-off called Rainbow Bridge. This was just four weeks before Hendrix’s infamously disappointing performance as the headliner of the Isle of Wight Festival— just seven weeks before his death. Under such circumstances, it’s natural to expect little of Hendrix’s Maui gig. Yet, recordings prove it was a spectacular testament to how in charge of his powers he still was so close to the end of his life.