Customer Reviews

Jimi Hendrix:Live at Woodstock

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Well I just bought this DVD and not only is the audio/video quality very good considering the time and equipment used to capture this time, I find this DVD really showed me the true Hendrix as he was on stage.
The on-stage jams make you feel as if you were there.
I find this DVD does a great job of taking you back in time to
one of the most celebrated Rock moments, and the camera shots
are just stunning.
It's a short one, but priced appropriately.
This is a good buy, Hendrix fan or not....

This is certainly Jimi's most famous performance with the exception on Monterey in 1967. Again re-inventing himself he becomes the Gypsy Sun, psychedelic leader and captain of the rag-tag outfit of musicians known as the Rainbows. I've been to the concert site in Bethel several times and you can still feel the electricity Jimi and the other artists and 500,000 members of the Woodstock Nation created that famous weekend on Max Yasgur's farm 35 years ago. Although a lot of this concert is experimental jamming, Jimi absolutely goes into the stratosphere on the best version of "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" I ever heard (or in this case heard AND saw!). Watching him take flight on the long solo is purely the sickest thing I ever heard. Nobody should be so gifted to make it look THAT EFFORTLESS! The blistering solo alone makes this trip to Yasgur's farm well worth the price of admission. Of course THE most famous moment of all is the bombastic rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," in which the Gypsy Sun made his very own. "Purple Haze," "Red House," "Izabella" and "Fire" are among the more well known numbers Gypsy Sun And Rainbows delivers to the remainder of the Woodstock Nation early that Monday morning. The only bad thing about the DVD is that it's not the complete set. However, it sure does deliver and never fails to take me "back to the Garden" and feel the real spirit of what it was like to wake up to the Gypsy Sun And Rainbows and take a soaring ride to rock n' roll's most famous event.

Ok, I doubt it accurately portrays the energy of the show, but it is still amazing. There is nothing exceptional about the camera work or production quality. It is all about average. The reason the DVD is so good is simply because it's Jimi playing. Anyone that has a respect for the guitar will love it. It is simply amazing what he is able to do with the electric guitar. Just watching this DVD provides a feeling of how amazing of a player he was and how revolutionary he was. If you love bluesy rock type music, you'll love watching Jimi Hendrix play his guitar.

Allow me to start off by saying I am among the large majority of rock music fans to believe Hendrix to be the best guitarist of all time. That being said however, there are relatively few DVD's available showcasing Hendrix. Bnd of Gypsies: Live at the Fillimore East is an excellent one. This dvd however , is not EXCELLENT. At least, not by Hendrix standards. Here's the main reason for that. There is no option for Dolby 5.1 Surround. Based on modern Music DVD standards, this is unnaceptable. I have many music dvd's, and every single one has D5.1 SS. The lack of this option dissapointed me greatly, because although the sound isn't bad, it isn't nearly as good as it could be. But this is not a BAD dvd. It simply is not as good as other Hendrix DVD's, such as the aforementioned Live at the Fillimore East. The songs are often very messy, although there are excellent instances such as the guitar work on Voodoo Child. All in all, worth the money if you are a die hard Hendrix fan as I am, but if you want to truly Experience Hendrix (no pun intended) I suggest you opt for Live at the Fillimore East instead, as it has excellent performances AND an excellent biography.

Being a guitarist as well as someone who is appreciative of music written and played by Hendrix, I purchased this DVD with the intention of learning more about the man. I had seen other footage of Hendrix, usually in some documentary form and even then he was shown only in fast clips. This DVD contains footage that is quite the opposite.

Within the first few seconds of watching Hendrix play, my heart rate increased noticeably. At home, by myself, watching this DVD, I heard myself audibly mentioning my disbelief of his skill countless times. The man played the guitar like some mutated extension of his own body, and at one point I wondered if he had systematically gone up every fret on every string and memorized every note and its exact location, so that when he played he could run through his library of tones in random but orderly fashion.

The camera swoops across the crowd on occasion. It is the end of Woodstock, and there are only a few people left... blankets and debris litter the field behind them (it is then that I realize that my experience at various Lolapaloozas was not truly unique). At the beginning of the Hendrix set, most of them look bored. I can't help but wonder if half of them are still there because they don't have a ride home, or if they are so exhausted from the past few days that they don't know what else to do. They couldn't possibly know that they had just taken part in a truly historic event, so the significance of the Hendrix closing set (with his hastily named "Band of Gypsies") was probably lost on them.

But the crowd changes quite a bit as the show goes on. At first, Hendrix seems as if he is some crazy showboating guitarist with a knack for rockin' out the blues. But then it intensifies with unceasing persistence. Mitch Mitchell, the drummer, is banging out incredible rythms while looking like he has just run a marathon, but he keeps going, feeding off Hendrix. Hendrix falls in and out of solo-induced trances - or possibly trance-induced solos - while occasionally looking to his band mates for signals to fall back into verse. At one point he drifts so far away he is lost in minutes of feedback-ridden wailing and crunching when he suddenly pops out of it and decides to introduce the rest of the band, as if he regretted his apparent selfishness of sound and wanted to give his colleagues a chance. By then, there are people in the crowd that are bouncing about with limp arms in that way that is so utterly hippie. There are a few young men with thick-rimmed glasses watching Hendrix with mouth open, moving ever so slightly to his every string-bending note.

And then he falls into Voodoo Child, a fast paced version full of 4-5 mintue jams that put Phish to shame. By now the show is at full intensity, and at one point Hendrix says "You can leave if you want to... we're just jammin'." He falls in and out of the song, collapsing into The Star Spangled Banner. I've heard the audio of this before, but the film changed my entire perspective on it. On the verse 'And the rockets red glare', Hendrix starts ripping random tones out of the Fender that I suddenly recognized to be launching rockets, followed by sounds of 'the bombs bursting in air'. Amazing. And *then* he goes into Purple Haze. I was so absorbed I forgot where I was and I felt light-headed. And then he is lost again, playing with the guitar as if he was at home in his basement, experimenting with tones and chords, and they fall into a jam from it, where somehow everyone in the band knew when and where it would start and end.

Phenomenal. I've had the "Who is the best guitarist ever" debate before. I've gone back and forth from Santanna to Clapton to Page to Hendrix. No more. I have decided. It is Hendrix, and I don't care if anyone thinks it is cliche. The man was an anomaly... someone who knew the guitar like his own hands, and never thought twice about it. So the reader of this review is asking: "Should I buy it or not?". I say: "Buy it. View it. Be glad that even though you weren't at Woodstock, you at least have this to give you some idea of what it was like."

This DVD was great after reviewing other peoples views I reliazed one person said no other members Larry Lee???? well the reason they cut his guitar out is because his guitar half the whole concert was out of tune. The DVD I thought was great when they cut the other members out because if you listen on the woodstock CD it sounds like a mess. It was better with Jimi, Mitch, and Billy the DVD was edited fine. I wish they would have added more to the DVD that was my big dissapointment why not all the footage? Well all I know is the full concert would have been a bigger experience than this DVD but the woodstock performence form on this DVD is fine I guess could be better. When it comes down to it the music was powerful I love the way they start the DVD and end it. Here are my favorite highlights of the concert Fire, Izabella, Red House, Voodoo Chile(slight return), and Jamming at the back house. I rated this a 4 not the best Hendrix DVD.

I remember reading a review of some posthumous Hendrix that stated "latter Hendrix is only for the staunchest". I disagree and this disc proves it. Hendrix in his last year or so really started exploring the guitar.

He was not sitting still... He was getting into jazz, jamming with Miles, Roland Kirk, etc. - ready for the next step.

I'm old enough to remember how boring the jazz-rock scene was in the 70s, but if Hendrix had lived he might have taken it to new (non-boring)levels.

I love the improvisations on this disc. - dash of flamenco here, some Wes Montgomery there - wonderful stuff. Yes, he was exhausted, but hell I wish I could play like that when I'm fully alert! Any student of guitar and music should view this show.

in the mix?? Is this another basterdized production reminicent of Alan Douglas's "Crash Landing", and MCA's "Voodoo Soup"? We hear and see Mitch, Billy, and Jimi but nothing of the other three. I only heard Larry during "Beginnings" when Jimi is shown "comping", but otherwise nothing of the other two. This is disappointing because although the band may have been under rehearsed (so what!) it was Jimi's intention to create this sound...Why not just let it be?

Five stars for the sound quality and footage. Still worth buying.

I just loved Izzabella and how jimi played a solo with his teeth!
During hendrix's dental descent, we see the guitar and not jimi's face though but otherwise great teeth solo. Also His version of Voodo Child Slight Return is one of the most POWERFUL versions i have ever heard

This should be rated 10 stars for the music. Hendrix was never better. The band never tighter, and it is as exciting for me today as it was in 1969 when my brother and I made it into Yasgur's farm after working all weekend in Saratoga, to catch and stand in awe of this remarkable and prodigious artist. Jimi's guitar playing was incendiary and the film puts to bed the notion that he was some burned out hippie doing pyrotechnics instead of playing music. This is where Coltrane left off and the telepathy between Hendrix and Mitchell was extraordinary. They are reminiscent, or perhaps better, the extension of the trail blazed by Trane and Rashied Ali, and inspite of Buddy Miles firm grounding of the band in the blues, the point of the matter is that Mitchell and Hendrix were each other's colleagues in every respect of this extraordinary adventure, first as the Experience, and later as Rainbow whatevere it was Jimi was on about. "Twas all semantics there, the real dialogue took place in the music and you will see ample evidence of how tightly Hendrix, Mitchell and Cox were playing off each other. There are no real jams here, more improvisations on a theme, and Hendrix is twice the perceptive leader anyone, including Robert Fripp, could ever imagine being. He knows exactly whre he wants this to go and knows exactly where the edge of the ledge is so that he may freefall in perfect discipline and land on his feet. And his colleagues are hand in hand with him. Billy Cox established conclusively that he was the right bassist, and the rhytm guitarist and 2 percussionists filled out the rhythmic pallette Hendrix sought to create.

It's funny to watch the film, because the audience is a mix of those just too numb to figure their way out, people celebrating the joyous groove Jimi conjures, and those intent on every move he makes. It's a shame the camera man seemed so fascinated by Hendrix's dental work, although, I have to admit Jimi had beautiful teeth. But, you'd figure there might have been some interest in his actual guitar technique. More's the pity. SO, I'd rate the film 4 stars for the quality and 1 and 1/2 stars for missing the point that this was the greatest guitarist of the twentieth century playing with a conviction and drive like no one else before or after.

Nonetheless the sound is extraordinary, in fact, better than I remember it.