Looks like this is gonna be a nice month of concerts for me :) Baltimore is the first of about 5 concerts from 1970 I received this month. And what a nice way to begin.
Recorded June 13th, 1970 at the Baltimore Civic Center, this CD features the Cry Of Love lineup, which was probably the strongest of any Jimi had assembled previously.
Starting off with Pass It On (an early version of Straight Ahead), Jimi leads the band into mostly new material, with a few old favorites thrown in for fun.
So many great performances here, the band was really tight at this point in the tour which allowed plenty of extended playing and jamming. Red House kicks some serious ass here, as it usually does.
Hey Joe gets a great audience reaction when Jimi begins playing. It's nice sometimes to hear the audience, to see if they're getting into the concert. And from the sounds of it, they certainly are.
And Jimi rewards them with some great playing. Purple Haze and Star Spangled Banner get reversed here; Jimi often used the end of SSB to go into Purple Haze, but here he does the opposite.
Not the best ever SSB, Woodstock holds that honor, but a nice simple arrangement. Jimi uses the SSB ending to go into the concert closer, and all time air guitar classic, Voodoo Child (Slight Return).
Very good to excellent quality for this release. The (I believe) added stereo effect isn't the best, but it doesn't detract from the performances. For an audience recording, this is an extremely good taping.
And the concert itself probably ranks in the top 10 Hendrix concerts ever. Definitely a CD to take the time to look for.
