Jimi Plays Monterey

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.

The generation of the 60s had the privilege to be one of the first in history of music which enjoyed the advance of technology as well as the interest of film makers, who recorded on film many of the major events as well as the sounds and image of the best artists and bands of the time. This is how we have Woodstock on film for example, and the film became associated with the festival and the festival with the film. The Monterey festival one year earlier than Woodstock was another major milestone of the era, and we are so lucky to have it recorded on film quite extensively. Here is the concert of Jimi Hendrix, which is the core of the documentary. We would have liked maybe to hear more about the rest of the career of Hendrix and about the impact he made on other artists, but maybe this would be left to another ultimate film about Hendrix. Here the music plays the major role and the music is really fabulous.

Although I'm not the greatest Hendrix fan in the world. This concert footage IS pretty amazing. We start with an AMAZING painting being done by a street artist of Hendrix, a little background, then finally, his performance at Monterey which proceeded to blow everybody away. His guitar playing is absolutely ridiculous, and it comes down to the finale, where WHOOSH! The guitar is in flames! and BANG! The guitar goes into a million pieces. I actually felt bad for the guitar, because such a piece of history to go to waste (actually, some pieces are in the experience Museum in Seattle). This is a great concert film for anyone, as I really enjoyed it.

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.

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.