The Biggest Square In The Building


Recorded during the Experience's tour of Texas, February 16, 1968. I also have the following night's concert on CD and hopefully soon, the previous night's set. Pretty decent concert, as most Experience concerts were. At some point between the original taping, and the mastering to CD, the speed of the music got slowed down somewhat. It's annoying, and eventually I'll probably speed correct this disc. But let's talk about what's here musically. Jimi opens with Are You Experienced, something he did on occasion during this point of the tour. Plays the solo very close to the original, imitating the reversed guitar playing. Very cool :) You can hear the onstage chat between songs very clearly, this must have been recorded close to the P.A. system speakers. On Fire, this allows you to hear Noel's background vocals very clearly, probably better than I've heard on any official releases in fact. Red House, normally a slow number, is extremely slow sounding thanks to the slow playback mentioned before. The great Purple Haze, gets a feedback drenched intro in a style that was normally reserved for Wild Thing, which closes this disc and concert.

Quality overall is okay, but not great. It plays a little slow (to my ears anyway), and the volume is quite low. There is some distortion on louder sections, but not too bad at least. Basically, an average concert and average CD.