Message-ID: <391900DF.354562C2@javanet.com> Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 02:25:35 -0400 From: csdixon Reply-To: csdixon@javanet.com Subject: JH+30 30 years ago today, on May 10, 1970, Jimi played the Hemisphere Arena in San Antonio, Texas. This ended the first of two '70 visits to Texas- he would return the first weekend of June though no tapes have surfaced from the later visit. While an improvement over the previous night's tape, the years of tape generations have not been kind to this one with lots of tape hiss present (though, as always, can only go by my copy and rarely do two have the exact same bloodline). The music is very distant-sounding, with guitar on the low side, bass OK and drums very low (nonexistent at times!). The vocals can be heard pretty well during the songs though Jimi's between song comments are hard to make out for the most part. (Setlist): Fire; Foxy Lady; Machine Gun; Freedom; Red House; Message Of Love; Hear My Train; Ezy Rider; Room Full Of Mirrors; Star Spangled Banner; Purple Haze; Voodoo Child (SR) - -After introducing the band, including "...yours truly on public saxophone..", the tape cuts to a lovely solo intro by Jimi using his flamenco-style technique with a bit of 'Bolero'. After about 45 seconds we go straight to 'Fire' for a rather unique segue. A bit hard to hear Mitch's drums even when he's the only one playing. Jimi again quotes 'Outside Woman Blues' after the solo. - -'Machine Gun' has Jimi sneaking in some quick tuneups during the intro. The solo starts fast n' furious at 3:35 and moves to the trills bent up and down with whammy bar at 4:45. Jimi doubles the bass line at 5:20 then moves to the "..over yonder stands a mother..." verse variation, again imitating Billy and Buddy's backing vocals with the guitar. At 7:00 Jimi does some ghostly feedback, leading to the 'wobbly' vibrato sequence. Ends quite suddenly with Jimi saying "thank you" at about 9:00. - -'Freedom' is great here, the band sounding very tight. Jimi's soloing over the changes is adventuresome as always, this time taking on a very country-ish feel with a twangy tone and pedal steel type bends. - -Sounds like he goes directly into 'Red House' as there's no obvious tape cut and the crowd cheers sound continuous. If so, this would mean he either uses the Strat for RH or used the Flying V for 'Freedom' as well (there is a tape cut before Freedom). The tape doesn't exactly lend itself to a close study of the guitar timbre, but can't rule out the latter scenario. RH features great playing throughout. Jimi's main solo is just two verses long, the first featuring some partial chord soloing and the second a more straight ahead single note style. He uses the wah behind the last verse for an even more vocal inflection to his call n' response 'answers'. Just after the last vocal line of "..her sister will..."... - -...the tape cuts to the 'Message Of Love' intro. The tape sound seems to become even more distant in these latter parts, the hiss at times threatening to take over the music! - -'Hear My Train' gets a nice little 15 second guitar variation with an experimental descending bass line before the main riff starts. He slips in a couple of chord substitutions at 1:30 before starting the vocals. The main solo begins with some long sustained notes at 3:05 and features some country style bends at 4:05 (it is Texas, after all). There's some high speed soloing after the final verse and it ends around 7:00. - -The drum intro for 'Ezy Rider' sounds ever more distant. Jimi slips in some extra bends and embellishments during the climbing chords at the end. - -'Room Full of Mirrors' features a little extra improv coming out of the bridge, Jimi playing in a fast rhythmic style that's briefly reminiscent of the pre-vocal riff from 'Gypsy Eyes'. Jimi adds yet another quick flamenco-style excursion at the very end. - -Jimi hits a wrong note going into 'SSB' but makes up for it with some nice melodic embellishments. We also get some unusually clean and delicate chords in the transition to 'Purple Haze'. By now the music sounds so distant that you'd think the taper was leaving early! - -VC(SR) gets a wild (albeit far away) solo before the final verse at 4:10. Jimi repeats the "If I don't see you no more..." line twice this time. An extremely short final solo leads to an earlier than usual ending at 5:20, the tape ending with a call for an encore that almost certainly was not forthcoming. Chris ------------------------------