Soundboard Series 2


A mixed CD this time, Soundboard Series 2 contains two concerts; one partial, one cut short by Jimi. There are tracks from the aborted Sept.2/70 concert at Arhus, Denmark, and the last 2/3's of the July 4th/70 concert from the Atlanta Pop Festival, in Gainesville, Georgia. Soundboard Series 2 is similiar to the Atlanta Special disc, but differs in two ways. First off, the Berkeley rehearsal tracks that were on the Atlanta Special disc have been replaced with the tracks from the Sept.2/70 concert which Jimi cut short due to exhaustion. The second difference in this set is in overall quality. This is vastly improved from the Atlanta Special disc. I never though tape generations made that much difference until recently. Now I'm definitely a convert!

The Arhus concert is definitely not one of Jimi's best moments. A long tour, partying, and general life problems finally caught up with Jimi, and he would cut this concert short after just 3 songs. His playing and singing seems sluggish, which is understandable considering everything going on around him. But this concert is still a piece of the overall puzzle, and any concert that has Hey Baby in it gets at least a passing mark from me. Which brings us to the Atlanta tracks...Atlanta was one of Jimi's better concerts from the 1970 tour, his Berkeley set being about the only one I would rank above it. In my humble opinion that is. Some people feel this concert isn't that good, but everybody is entitled to their own opinions right? A great, though somewhat incomplete Atlanta concert, but definitely most of the highlights can be found here. A great All Along The Watchtower, previously only available on the Johnny B. Goode LP. Jimi teases the crowd with the opening bars of the Star Spangled Banner before kicking into Purple Haze. Voodoo Child rocks, as always. Stone Free ends with some feedback before Jimi unleases Star Spangled Banner onto the crowd. Different from Woodstock's, this is a mean, hungry, angry version. Second only to Woodstock's SSB as best version of the "song they used to brainwash us in school with". Hey Baby, my second favorite Jimi track, closes this concert and it's a great instrumental version of it. What a way to end a show!

Quality on this release is incredible. The Arhus tracks sound a little on the slow side, but they came from sources close to the master, so either that's how they actually sounded that day, or the recording itself was flawed and/or degraded over the years. But it's still quite listenable. The Atlanta tracks are very good as well, hopefully EH will see fit to release a complete 2 disc set of this concert as it's probably in the top 5 from the 1970 tour. Another must have release for the Hendrix fan!

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