Audience

CDR

1

DVD 465; lineage: Unknown audience recording. This is part of a five-disc ATM set called Jimi In Germany, ATM 147-151, this is disc 4. Originally grabbed from Crosstowntorrents.org.

From Chris Dixon's 30th Anniversary Series © C S Dixon

January 23, 1999 marks the 30th anniversary of the Experience show at the Sportpalast in Berlin, Germany. Here we have the final date of what was possibly Jimi's densest two weeks of gigs ever. The tape has a pretty good mix with none of the muddy hall acoustics of the previous night's tapes (I've got to work on that 'Reverb Remover' device...). Guitar and drums are well matched, Noel is a bit low in the mix (both bass and vox) and, as we'll see, there are some problems with Jimi's vocal mic. This tape is cut between songs with quick fades in and out, in most cases chopping a few seconds from the song beginnings.

'Fire' as usual features Mitch's drum fills between the solo and last verse, but here the guitar has some sort of trouble and drops out for a brief drum solo before resuming with the "..try to gimme your money.." lyric.

'Hey Joe' starts a little out of tune but Jimi slips in a check of all the open strings' tuning, in perfect time, just before the solo! Short 'tooth bit' at the end.

'Spanish Castle' starts normally but Jimi's mic cuts out after the word "..dragonfly". Nonplused, Jimi proceeds to solo over the remaining verse, play the chorus instrumentally, then do the usual solo spot! Mitch builds it up to a double-time feel during the typically intense solo, then Jimi hits some 'stop chords' in a riff similar to what we later hear at the end of the 'In From The Storm' bridge. There's a short drum solo and Jimi re-enters with said riff and a bit more soloing. Then, for the first time in recent shows, he returns to the "Hang on, my darling..." lyric to finish....maybe just because the mic is working!

After 'SCM', Noel asks the audience to "..sit down and stop rushing around...". Apparently there was quite a bit of audience rowdiness this night and the next song, 'Foxy', has the guitar solo punctuated by a couple of firecracker blasts! Another Noel admonishment can be heard during the tape fade afterward.

'Red House' opens with only one 12 bar chorus of solo before the vocals enter (it's usually 2 or more). The middle section follows the now familiar pattern of two choruses of 'full shred' soloing followed by the 'slapped' 3/4 feel chordal bit. The guitar is virtually inaudible at first during this section but gets better. This is followed by an unaccompanied guitar interlude, IMO one of the finest examples of same! Very light touch and clean toned (no wah) - just your basic 'genius at work' (this despite another firecracker interruption..). This changes rather abruptly, even a little awkwardly, to another chorus of 'full shred wah' soloing before the final verse.

'Come On' appears a little later in the set, having opened quite a few shows on this tour. Played noticeably faster than usual. Jimi's mic once again fails, during the last verse (though you can hear his voice very faintly-acoustically!?), cutting back in just in time to hear the final "..let the good times roll". Solo tag before the final chord the wildest yet, a lightning fast burst of pure energy! This is the last 'Come On' until 5/69....

'Purple Haze' has the guitar solo abruptly depart from the familiar line, so much so that it could be a broken string. Jimi recovers nicely though. After his mic being absent all night, we hear Noel sing the "oooh....ahhh" before the final verse.

One of the results of doing these reviews on their respective anniversaries is that I get a sense of what Jimi's schedule was like in real time. It's been a bit of a marathon keeping up with listening to and recapping the flood of tapes of these last two weeks- I can only imagine how exhausting it was to actually travel around Europe *playing* all those shows and more!! Whew...

Chris

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