I was 16. It was a frigid afternoon 31 December 1969. I sat in my house listening to some good band—maybe The Who, thinking that here it was New Years Eve, and I didn’t have anything to do and nowhere to go. The wind was howling and you could feel snow in the air (on Long Island you could feel when it was going to snow).
I make a phone call to my drummer, a 14-year-old red headed kid named Billy Jones, this kid hit hard. Billy was an aggressive kid who was always in trouble. He wasn’t afraid of anything and was adventurous and his parents never paid attention to him. Ring, ring—Billy picks up the phone, I ask him what he’s doing and he says nothing. I say great, get your ass over here now, we are taking the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan to see Jimi Hendrix.
He gets to my house later than I expected him to arrive—he said he had a hard time riding his bike in the snow so it took him longer than usual. I thought to myself that we would never make it into Penn Station then subway down to 2nd Ave and 4th Street on time to see the first Hendrix performance of the evening that started at 7:00PM. LATE SHOW!!!
The Fillmore always had two shows of the same exact act on Friday and Saturdays. The bands would start at 7, do their show, then to a different audience come back at 11:00 and perform the same show over again. Bill Graham made more money that way.
I tell my parents I am sleeping over Billy’s house, he tells his mom he is sleeping at my house (his dad was a drunk and was never home and didn’t care) and off we go—train into Penn Station from Bethpage—45 minutes later the train zooms under the East River and pulls into Penn Station. We climb the stairs to the street (Penn Station is underground, NYC is so cool) back down the stairs to a subway and down to 2nd Ave—we had to walk to 4th street. This part of the city always scared me—lots of trouble.
It was dark and cold as we walked faster than we ever walked before, it was cold—we cross St Marx place and there is the Fillmore marquee—Hendrix BOG it read, 7 and 11.
The early show wasn’t out yet. We go to the ticket window and buy tickets, 4 dollars a piece, first row, first balcony upstairs, my favorite vantage point in the theater right above the America flag (I can be seen in a photo in the liner notes). You hung right over the stage in the first balcony and could only see like the first 2 rows downstairs. Its not like today with all these sellouts and shit, standing on line for hours trying to buy a ticket for Dave Matthews.
We run up the stairs of the smoke filled old movie theater (you could smoke everywhere in those day) and rushed to our seat—ah, Jimi Hendrix—The Joshua Light show was very cool. Jimi blew us both away. Best evening of my life.
We get home 6:00 in the morning, sneak into our houses and noone ever knows we were gone.
I wish I was back in those days…
I make a phone call to my drummer, a 14-year-old red headed kid named Billy Jones, this kid hit hard. Billy was an aggressive kid who was always in trouble. He wasn’t afraid of anything and was adventurous and his parents never paid attention to him. Ring, ring—Billy picks up the phone, I ask him what he’s doing and he says nothing. I say great, get your ass over here now, we are taking the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan to see Jimi Hendrix.
He gets to my house later than I expected him to arrive—he said he had a hard time riding his bike in the snow so it took him longer than usual. I thought to myself that we would never make it into Penn Station then subway down to 2nd Ave and 4th Street on time to see the first Hendrix performance of the evening that started at 7:00PM. LATE SHOW!!!
The Fillmore always had two shows of the same exact act on Friday and Saturdays. The bands would start at 7, do their show, then to a different audience come back at 11:00 and perform the same show over again. Bill Graham made more money that way.
I tell my parents I am sleeping over Billy’s house, he tells his mom he is sleeping at my house (his dad was a drunk and was never home and didn’t care) and off we go—train into Penn Station from Bethpage—45 minutes later the train zooms under the East River and pulls into Penn Station. We climb the stairs to the street (Penn Station is underground, NYC is so cool) back down the stairs to a subway and down to 2nd Ave—we had to walk to 4th street. This part of the city always scared me—lots of trouble.
It was dark and cold as we walked faster than we ever walked before, it was cold—we cross St Marx place and there is the Fillmore marquee—Hendrix BOG it read, 7 and 11.
The early show wasn’t out yet. We go to the ticket window and buy tickets, 4 dollars a piece, first row, first balcony upstairs, my favorite vantage point in the theater right above the America flag (I can be seen in a photo in the liner notes). You hung right over the stage in the first balcony and could only see like the first 2 rows downstairs. Its not like today with all these sellouts and shit, standing on line for hours trying to buy a ticket for Dave Matthews.
We run up the stairs of the smoke filled old movie theater (you could smoke everywhere in those day) and rushed to our seat—ah, Jimi Hendrix—The Joshua Light show was very cool. Jimi blew us both away. Best evening of my life.
We get home 6:00 in the morning, sneak into our houses and noone ever knows we were gone.
I wish I was back in those days…
