Jimi Plays Berkeley

I had a chance to see this concert. I was serving out my hitch as a US Army draftee at Fort Ord (a few hours south of Berkeley). A fellow Army friend with tickets, knowing I was a Hendrix fan and had never seen him perform, invited me to the Berkeley concert. Since I was scheduled for duty that night, I had to decline. But figured no problem, I'll catch Jimi another time.

The Berkeley concert was in May, I believe. Four months later I walked into the office and someone said, "Hey, did you hear? Jimi Hendrix died."

This is yet,another in the myriad of midnight films I had the pleasure of seeing in the early 1980's,when late shows were still plentiful (and just about the time when late night audiences were beginning to act out of line,thus heralding the beginning of the end of the midnight movie---the video revolution didn't exactly help either). With the exception of the first ten minutes of this film,which is given to footage of protesters refusing to see Woodstock at their local cinema,due to a epidemic of what I referred to as "armchair Marxism" (rich college kids who wanted the world handed to them on a silver platter),the film launches into a non stop Hendrix concert for the rest of the bulk of the film. Some cynics have stated that this was not Jimi's best performance, but you would not know that with the reaction of the crowd that was in attendance that night (plus,the cinema had the good sense to crank the volume up to concert level,as there wasn't another film in progress). This "rockumentary" (or rock doc,as they're calling them these days)is well worth seeking out for Hendrix fans (and fans of period music,as well)

A quick explanation of the rating: 9.5 out of 10 for Hendrix, 2 out of 10 for the crap camera work, editing, nonsensical irrelevant footage, filler and other junk. And deduct a million more stars for gratuitously editing Jimi's guitar solos in Machine Gun, Voodoo Child and others. Seriously, what the f...? So anyway, average em out and (since you can't actually deduct a million stars) you come to six stars. It pains me to rate a Hendrix video so low, but honestly, this film looks like it was done by a bunch of kids with dad's super 8 camera.

Hendrix himself is, of course, incendiary and his backup, the Band of Gypsys era duo featuring Billy Cox on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums, are also pretty on-form. Jimi's performances, as I've often said, tend to be kind of like sex: when they're good they're awesome, and when they're bad... they're still pretty darn good! I've heard that there's an expanded re-release of this video coming out or is already available. Might be worth looking for, if only to restore what should never have been removed in the first place. Editing a Hendrix solo is a bit like abridging the Bible: the six commandments, the one and a half gospels, the sermon on the little knoll, the penultimate supper, Paul's telegrams to the Corinthians, Jesus's pretrial hearing before Pontius Pilate's younger brother, and so on. In other words: sacrilege!

Despite its shortcomings this is my favorite official Jimi film.I first saw it at the local midnight flicks when I was in my early teens.I never missed it again.Even then (late 70s)I really wanted one of the "new " VCRs just to play this movie.The performances are outstanding.In my opinion Mr. Hendrix was at the top of his game in 1970 and this shows edited performances from two shows he did on the same night.Backstage scenes of a rehearsal and the limo ride to the show are very interesting.Songs such as Lover Man and Hey Baby are spotlighted along with better known songs (in 1970 anyway)including Purple Haze,Star Spangled Banner,Voodoo Child,and a great version of the recently (in 1970) released Machine Gun,ruined in my opinion by the intercut shots of the Berkeley riots.Maybe this was needed in 1970.The modern era of everybody seeing everything was still very far away.Anyway,too many edits,too much intercut footage and too short.Still THE classic documentary of Jimi in 1970.Nothing against any other official show.I love them all.This one though ,is special.

Hendrix was such a fantastic icon/musician, who definitely deserved the best presentation and unfortunately that wasn't/isn't always the case - far from! If you consider that there actually only was four original albums released during Hendrix' life, which all was amazing, all the rest vast number of releases was posthumous material. A little handful of those are fortunately great stuff, but a lot of it should never had seen the light of day. Hendrix Plays Berkeley is fortunately very nicely recorded and highlights from the Berkeley concerts was released on the posthumous album "Hendrix in the West" - very nice live album. Unfortunately the film is kind of an amateurish effort, but worst of all is the total insensitive editing where big parts is brutally cut out in the middle of his solos, which makes the film quite irritating to watch, specially when the very same performances is familiar to you, in their full length, on various albums. They should be able, with the modern technology, to improve the film quality and make a way to avoid the cut outs of music, so it would be a presentable film - that said for a fan it is worth having, at least it is better than nothing and the song Johnny B. Goode is presented in its entirety.