Jimi Hendrix setlists and frustration

There's something that's been intriguing me for a long time: Jimi Hendrix expressed his frustration about playing the same old hits on tour, mostly during the Experience days and their relentless touring.
One striking thing however is the lack of variation in the setlist. Sure, there was a lot of improvisation but how many songs from "Axis Bold As Love" were ever played live? Same for "Electric Ladyland"? Some songs appear to have been played only a handful of times. Some shows in early 69 got a lukewarm reception in the press but like Stockholm, it's understandable in a way. There was only ONE song from the album they were on tour to promote that was played. Not dissimilar to the Beatles in 66 hardly playing anything from "Revolver".

One could say it has to do with technology and the inability to replicate the overdubs live, but I don't think it's a point - it was Jimi Hendrix. One hell of a musician.He could pull it off, and play his songs in a live format (his newest songs had loads of overdubs and some were played on tour in 1970).

How do you feel about this lack of variation? Do you think Jimi could have/should have added more variety in his setlists? Was this workaholic "lazy" with his setlists because he felt people didn't really listen or because he favoured the studio?

 

Yes, it is a little disappointing that Jimi didn't expand his live repertoire but I think that one of the reasons was the fact that he usually had to go out there each night and do two sets. So it had to be compact and he was fully aware and sympatheic with the fact that his fans so wanted to see him play the hits. As you say, he did use those hits as a platform for improvisation (brilliantly) and he also made sure there was at least one long blues in the set (usually Red House, Catfish Blues or Hear my Train).
As you say, he did bring in many new songs for the 1970 tours and I think that they were only partially successful. The future album versions were so rich with overdubs that he could only approximate them on stage in a three-piece format. Concert goers must have been a little mystified.

 

a little confused. his setlists seemed to follow similar bands back in the day who seemed to have someone specific setlists depending on how long of a set they were given. a lot of the stuff on the albums you named were hard to play live. he did play "Spanish castle magic" and "little wing" a lot. from electric ladyland he played "voodoo child" and "all along the watchtower" a lot. he liked to play lots of covers and newer songs that were written after electric ladyland

 

Unless it's a really outstanding show, it becomes redundant after a time and not just with Hendrix. I am not as interested in live stuff by Hendrix at this point for that reason. I would be happy if they released the rest of the Band of Gypsies material and the other Berkeley show along with Royal Albert Hall but I already have all of it on bootlegs.

It seems like many of the Hendrix shows that were recorded in good sound quality had similar set lists or if they did not, the performances were not as good. The Isle Of Wight and Atlanta Pop Festival are examples.

 

...And apparently Noel Redding didn't enjoy "Spanish Castle Magic"
(I love it).

 

I can imagine Jimi hating to play, again and again, Foxey Lady -while ignoring dozens of more interesting and seldom or never played gems.

 

Billy Cox has a great description of their situation on the 1970 tour: We know the audience wanted to hear Purple Haze and Foxy Lady, so we have them that. But we also gave them some new material. It is disappointing he didn’t really add much to the set list from Axis or Ladyland (the only regulars were SCM, Little Wing in 68 and 69, Voodoo Child, an occasional Come On and Watchtower in 70). In 70, Message and Machine Gun were staples as were Freedom and Hey Baby.

I can imagine something like Up From the Skies or Long Hot Summer Night not going over well with some audiences, but by 70 he felt confident enough to play things they’d never heard on a regular basis. The Experience’s personal tensions also played into it (which is why they never played Watchtower with Noel). Disappointing, yes but things happened for a reason.

 

I believe most of the songs on Axis and Ladyland could have been arranged for live performances, but apart from the very early days and the 1969 Royal Albert Hall show, The Experience hardly ever rehearsed for tours. And when they had some time off from the road, they were either in the studio, or just enjoying a short break.

With Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, Band of Gypsys, and the 1970 line-up with Cox and Mitchell, they played the hits, but also lots of new stuff they've been working on at the time.

 

The way he says "if we want the same old songs, we can do that..." during the intro at Wight is quite telling IMO...

 

You can imagine how thrilled I was when I picked up this CD as a teenager. Yes, I fell for it.

What a letdown that was!

 

According to Billy Cox that was the one Experience "hit" Jimi wasn't tired of because it was simple enough to allow him to move around and clown a bit. Some of the later performances of Hey Joe and Purple Haze are clearly uninspired though.

 

As others have pointed out, it was as era where set-lists were rarely deviated from. Hendrix did start to expand his set-lists in 1970 by incorporating some new material from his session work, but few concerts were professionally recorded, and some that were, were very uneven. And like other artists, Hendrix became a victim of his own success because he had to play "Purple Haze" and "Hey Joe" no matter how much he had tired of the material.

I rarely get truly excited about new Hendrix "live" releases, however, I would love to see the complete BoG Fillmore East shows get a proper, professional release (based on the release of last year's "Machine Gun," I suspect EH is going to slowly issue bits and pieces of those tapes). Nevertheless, it will be nice to see San Diego 1969, Los Angeles 1969, Berkeley 1970, and even Maui 1970 receive complete, professional mixed and mastered releases. Oh, and yes, Royal Albert Hall.

 

Jimi was in his element with Band Of Gypsies. Having a discontented Noel to deal with later in the Experience held the whole thing back imo. Jimi didn't want to deal with it, thus very little ever got worked up from the later albums partially because Noel wasn't on board. Once Noel was gone and he was with like minded musicians, musicians that were on board with Jimi's vision things flourished with BOG ... for a while. Then drugs took a further take and started a partial decline. That's my take from what I've read.

 

"Woodoo" Child?

That's one thing about being a massive Hendrix fan that's always confused me...as legendary as he was, his live stuff isn't nearly as compelling (at least to me) as live stuff by Cream, the Who, Led Zeppelin, Zappa, etc is. I still buy any new live Hendrix they release and I've got loads of boots, but a lot of his live stuff just doesn't grab me as much as stuff by those other bands do, and most of those acts didn't vary their setlists too much, either (at least within a given tour).

 

Woodoo you love ?

 

I've never seen this one. I would have been tempted to buy it too, especially for live versions of Crosstown Traffic, House Burning Down and Still Raining. Is the quality very bad, or is it one of those cases where it's not Jimi playing live at all?

 

Well, Jimi never played Gypsy Eyes, Crosstown Traffic, House Burning Down or Still Raining, Still Dreaming live.

 

It's just the studio versions and not even in good sound quality. A real pirate record that was quite widely available. I used to see it all the time.
Only two tracks are live versions, "Johnny B Goode" and "Red House" from "In The West".
Coming from Italy, I thought it HAD to be live stuff! Little did I know.

 

Never understood why he didn't play Bold As Love. Only ever found one live version, and that was an instrumental iirc.

 

Buddy wasn't an ideal match for Jimi imo, but you have a point - the latter day Experience rarely rehearsed at all (instead jamming extensively on old material), probably due to the friction between Noel and Jimi and a general malaise in the band. The joy was gone.

 

Why not?

 

Well, as you asked...
-Personality-wise he had a big ego and wanted his share of the spotlight, which did not agree that well with Jimi (Eddie Kramer recalls Jimi saying "Please shut up, Buddy!" when they were mixing the BOG album and trying to cut Buddy's vamping).
-He took financial advantage of Jimi, which caused friction. In fact there are other stories about Buddy abusing fellow musicians in the same manner.
-Musically he was too limited. He did his "boom-boom-thuck!" really well but not much else.

The BOG project was designed specifically to get Jimi out of his contractual mess anyway, and not as a long-standing operation. The 1970 Experience tour of 1970 was planned around spring 1969.

 

Yeah, I think one complaint is that Jimi disliked the improv "scat singing" on Band of Gypsies. There may have been other issues too. In my opinion Mitch Mitchell was a great complement to Jimi's style, much better than Buddy. Though, Buddy did go on to do some impressive things with other performers and on his own.

 

I really like Buddy's drumming on John McLaughlin's album Devotion. Maybe he was just better in a studio environment.

 

I'm not too keen on the idea of all the BOG Fillmore tapes being put out. Some of the renditions are pretty weak. Jimi even apologises for the fact.