Jimi Plays Monterey

John Phillips recounts seeing Jimi Hendrix for the first time. There is a performance in London to start this documentary off where he plays Sergeant Pepper. He gives a bit of his anti-war sentiment and Phillips raves about his guitar playing. The meat of this film is the Monterey Pop Music Festival. It doesn't get better than Foxy Lady, Wild Thing, and his iconic burning of his guitar. I have never listened to Jimi all the way through. I've obviously seen snippets of guitar burning and snippets of his song hooks. He has real stage charisma and energy. It's easy to see why he's a music icon.

Still one of the most famous rock festivals of all time, Monterey Pop brought together much of the music that was striking chords with young people all over America- some of the talent that had been obscure or small time in the US (Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix), while others were huge smash bands (The Who, Simon & Garfunkel, Mamas and the Papas), not to mention a breakthrough performance for Ravi Shankar. With this accompaniment to the feature film, which was released twenty years or so before this, Hendrix and the Experience brought their sound for the first time after being the cult favorites in the UK. It's not a long concert, but it can certainly be counted as one of his most notorious.

There were allegations, which perhaps could or could not be true (I haven't read any biographies about the concert, but I heard the rumors), that Hendrix was on acid during the set. Whatever he was on or wasn't on, the songs that come through (filmed with superb documentary detail by DA Pennebaker, with assistance from Albert Maysles) are none-the-less mesmerizing. Aside from what has been played over and over to show the insane magnitude of Hendrix (burning his guitar after a crazed rendition of "Wild Thing"), there's also a turn of "Like a Rolling Stone", "Hey Joe", and a beautiful bit with "The Wind Cries Mary". There could've been more in the way of interviews, but as it is, Jimi Plays Monterey is a fine little companion piece to the film.

I don't know why it took 19 years for D.A. Pennbaker's and Chris Hegedus' movie to make it from performance on stage to screening at the Toronto Film Festival. I suspect it was because every time they went into the editing booth, they got such a contact high that all they could do was giggle at the fug. Jimi was a monster in the original sense of the word, something you came to gawk at, a creature from some weird planet where the visible spectrum did not include light as we know it - which is the only explanation I can think of for his clothes -- and selective breeding had produced people who came out of the egg brilliant at the guitar, and then spent the next twenty years trying to get competent.

Jimi and his sidemen do a half-hour set. I'm exhausted.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, at the height of Jimi's powers. No wonder Pete Townsend and the WHO refused to follow them on the concert's bill...one of rock's finest hours. Jimi's introduction to "Like a Rolling Stone" may be the finest moment in live rock history.

Jim's big break in the U.S was at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. The film is a record of that legendary performance and gives you an excellent idea of both how incredible a musician he was and how much of a showman he could be. Though his concert performance is now over 50 years old, it is still mesmerizing to watch and I would say essential viewing for all Classic Rock fans.