Hendrix visited Denmark 4 times, playing 4 different locations in Aarhus and Copenhagen.
I experienced Hendrix twice: Jan. 10. 1969 at The Falkoner Center (1. show) and sept. 3. 1970 at the KB Hallen.The KB Hallen concert was a loud and mind blowing experience. Jmi at his very best!
Blue Sun, danish support band, did a splendid warm up performance and received a huge aplause.
Audience had to wait 35 min. before Hendrix, Mitchell and Cox took the stage.
I shot 18 pics from a splendid upfront position very close to the stage.
I used my Hasselblad 500 C with a 150 mm. short tele lens loaded with a 400 ASA Kodak Ektachrome film squeezed to 1600 ASA due to a special developing proces at the photo laboratory.
The 6x6 cm. format makes the pics extremely detailed.
I have kept the pics as a treasure during all these years.
For a couple of years I believed the pics were lost but fortunately I found them but that's another story.
My own 18 colour pics:
Other pics:
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| Me down far left working my Hasselblad |
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| Roadie Eugene Mc Fadden |
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| Kirsten Nefer |
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| Kirsten Nefer |
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| Kirsten Nefer |
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| Kirsten Nefer |
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| Kirsten Nefer |
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| Kirsten Nefer |
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| Kirsten Nefer |
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| Burning to the ground |
DANISH PRESS REPORTS:
AKTUELT - ‘Guitarkongen i kanonform’ [‘Guitar king in top form’]
The autumn pop season started in the best way at K.B. Hallen last night, where Jimi Hendrix, the undefeated master of the electric guitar, gave a concert. The hall was full and 4,000 wild fans put the skids under the famous man. It seemed like the many pop fans had saved up all summer, you’d have to look a long time for for similar atmosphere. There was applause for the sound technician and the doormen, besides of course, the musicians, and two men who rolled of with a piano.
A concert with Hendrix is one big prayer meeting, where the single musical point does not matter. It is the entirety, the power, the energy, the humor, which is the determining part. And Jimi was in good shape. He talked, laughed and played incomprehensibly on his big shining guitar. We got "All Along the Watchtowers"[sic], "Machine Gun" and a lots of others, known and unknown. The amplifiers blasted and the applause was neverending.
The Danish-American group “Blue Sun” entertained for the first part, with theatrical attitudes, gimmicks and avantgarde jazz. We could have done without them.
BERLINGSKE TIDENDE (page?) ‘Hendrix uden overraskelser’ [‘Hendrix without surprises’] by [unknown]:
Full house for the concert in K.B. Hallen
After a way to long break and a quarter with an impatient audience, who demanded the headliner on stage, Jimi Hendrix walked softly into the K.B. Hallen with his white guitar and his new group. His presence resulted in a true rush against the stage - as an idolized person he has a place next to Mick Jagger. His position as loner he confirmed by playing with the amplifiers being twice as large as the bass player Billy Cox's, and being on a sound level which made it completely impossibly to hear the drummer Mitch Mitchell. Though Hendrix is a great
musician, he seems to have a small personality. The music was not different from Hendrix's two other visits to the city. In a scene show, with sexual appeal and songs from old records he is able to keep the listener's attention all the time. His brilliant finger maneuver and safe routine fills the room with high-pressure sound. The fantastic offerings, which Hendrix at single previous concerts has presented us with, did not came yesterday. It was obvious that this concert was one in a million.
In the middle of the show the left-handed American guitarist got lyrical and played dreamy and wonderful in "Baby, Where Do You Come From" [sic].
Hendrix, in a Gypsy outfit, also let a soft snarl renew his own compositions and Bob Dylan’s "All Along The Watchtower". It was Hendrix as expected, but without any news.
EKSTRA BLADET - ‘Hendrix træt, vil ha' pause’ [‘Tired Hendrix wants a break’]
“Why do I work so much? Yes, I wish I knew. But now I have to take it easy.” This was what Jimi Hendrix told Ekstra Bladet after his concert in K.B. Hallen in Copenhagen. At the same time he revealed that he did not know that he was the headliner this week at the Fehmaren festival. If Hendrix disappointed his audience Wednesday evening in Århus, he played for almost 100 minutes in Copenhagen. But Jimi is probably a kid for fun. Even though everybody started fidgeting with impatience around 20.15, when he was supposed to follow the group Blue Sun, he played on in his dressing room together with his bass player Billy Cox and with his girlfriends as an adoring audience. At the same time the mood in the hall was raising, and Anders Stefansen from Scandinavian Booking Agency got wrinkles on his forehead, and Hendrix's many people ran back and forth. One saw to that the door to the stage and the shouting people was closed. Would he play or not? That was what you asked yourself after 30 minutes. But Hendrix would, even though he was tired, exhausted, and lacked sleep. This was the official explanation. After the show he was not more tired though, than he and the ladies were planning a trip to Tivoli.
This night Hendrix plays in Hamburg, if...
EKSTRA BLADET - ‘Varmt og direkte lydorgie med Hendrix’ [‘Warm and direct sound-orgy with Hendrix’]
Even though K.B. Hallen with its dark lines of chairs and its enormous arching loft, is not normally the place where great events happen, it was with some expectations, that the flight on Hendrix's soft, strong music was anticipated. Blue Sun, one of the new Danish groups, which has been very popular lately, supported Hendrix who could need that [...Blue Sun reviewed...] But then Hendrix entered, greeted by a giant wave of applause from the
audience. He answered back by showing the V-sign and jumped right into [… cannot read this line], and let us know that something was happening now, here and now. And with far-reaching, beautiful visual sound waves he gave back what he had and more than that. Far into the body one felt how Hendrix with his guitar and his amplifiers could make love to a hall full of people.
Hendrix and the audience never reached the brimming over-climax, the communication with the pushing bass player Billy Cox missed a couple of times, and Mitch Mitchell was often lost, but everything flowed quiet and warm up and down without any of the parts reaching climax, and when Hendrix had played the extra songs "Hey Joe" and "Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire" everything went quiet and calm. There was given and there was taken so much that everyone felt comfortable.
POLITIKEN - ‘Kærlighedens kriger’ [‘Warrior of love’]. ‘Unsurpassed Hendrix in Copenhagen’ :
Concert of the year. This label is very used, but this time it is justified. Jimi Hendrix at K.B. Hallen last night surpassed anything we have heard until now. A filled hall made love to him, sat with open mouths and vibrating nerves and heard him, Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell (who went to London yesterday and returned on a chartered plane, to say hello to his new-born daughter). Stone Free, Foxy Lady, Message To Love, All Along The Watchtower, Freedom, Spanish Castle Magic, Purple Haze, Hey Joe, you name it, they where all there. Jimmi
[sic] was ill and tired in Århus, but in Copenhagen he was so high that it was true energy, true adrenalin which ran through his fingers, through the guitar and into all of us. That any human can contain this much is so incredible that it can only be true.
He gave the peace sign when he entered, and the feelings he and his group expressed through their music was true love, a love that contains all the aspects of love, from sorrow to rebirth. As a warrior of love he stood dressed in many colors and was the best guitarist rock ‘n’ roll music can offer. What Hendrix, Cox and Mitchell gave those who where in K.B. Hallen no one can take from them.
INFORMATION - ‘Hendrixerei’ [‘Hendrixcraft’] Jimi Hendrix and Blue Sun in KB-Hallen
by ‘Weidemann’:
In connection with the broken off concert in Århus last Wednesday Jimi Hendrix is supposed to have said that he had "been dead for a long time". If this is correct, I would suggest that the concert two days [sic] later in Copenhagen was a rise from the dead. A similar musical liveliness I have rarely experienced. It lasted one and a half hour, and left one as a rag. It was hard to bear. More reserved listeners would might make objections saying that Hendrix gives the audience too few breaks, and that he was at unvaried speed at the highest volume and intensity. But I am afraid there seems to be nothing to do about that. After all it is on this level of sound, that he utilizes the guitar-amplifiers tonal possibilities. Should it not be possible to live on the intensity level he uses? After all it is not frequent you experience something like this. For my own concern I have to think back to the last Hendrix concert one and a half year ago, and from there all the way back to John Coltranes first visit, nine years ago. There is time for a breathing space.
Also the reminiscence of Hendrix as an entertainer - from time to time he put his tongue out and played guitar with his mouth, would it be too cheap to make sarcastic remarks about considering how much music you get besides, and in addition it is music which is continually built up, music which almost from minute to minute exceeds its own limits. Not to forget his appearance, which is unique, his colorful dress, but first of all his supple grace in every
movement during his playing. I do not think I know any musician who offers the eye as much as Hendrix. Beside him, his two co-workers get reduced to nothing but co-workers. The bass player Billy Cox is anyway no flyer, a very solid accompanist, but not filled with ideas like the predecessor, the English Noel Redding. The drummer Mitch Mitchell is on the other hand an excellent third part. Maybe not dynamic enough for Hendrix, that would demand an Elvin Jones or Tony Williams, but with a rhythmic complexity and an ability to follow Hendrix everywhere, which can be hard to imagine any other drummer do. And when did we last hear a drum solo so rhythmic and eventful as Mitchell’s this time?
But beat concert? The word is too narrow to cover what happened. It was more a musically trip, which went beyond what you can hear on the records of Hendrix (and even at his last concert), and beyond all other musical categories. A trip, also in the sense that you would wait a while before a repetition, there is enough of impressions to work with. At the same time we look forward to the next time...
On this background, the first group Blue Sun's first hour fades a bit. They did play better and more independent, when talking about first breed, and this section also offered a special attraction in a short guest play by trumpeter Don Cherry, a combination I would love to hear more from... Blue Sun reviewed ... But of course, which other first group could have got away unhurt from supporting Hendrix?
