It's been a busy day today, but I still found some time to watch this 62-minute documentary/concert movie of a groundbreaking, historically significant concert.
There's a good deal of interviews at the start that set the scene decently. I was a little impatient for the movie to just get to Jimi Hendrix playing, but at the same time, if it had just jumped straight into the music, I likely wouldn't have appreciated it fully. Apparently, Hendrix wasn't a big name in America before this, and it was his bold and shocking (for the time) live performance at Monterey that really made him a star.
Of course, this means the music is limited to his earlier work, but it's still quality stuff (the best Jimi Hendrix albums for me are his third studio album, Electric Ladyland, and also his live album from the early 70s, Band of Gypsys, which is among the best live albums of all time). I did really like his Bob Dylan cover here - he did Like A Rolling Stone, and I think it was the first time I heard his cover of that Dylan song (All Along The Watchtower is ultimately more famous).
So yeah, for fans of rock music, this is a good watch. It's a little short and dry in parts, but it sounds good, and the concert itself is top quality, and demonstrates pretty well why Hendrix is so highly-revered in the world of music.
There's a good deal of interviews at the start that set the scene decently. I was a little impatient for the movie to just get to Jimi Hendrix playing, but at the same time, if it had just jumped straight into the music, I likely wouldn't have appreciated it fully. Apparently, Hendrix wasn't a big name in America before this, and it was his bold and shocking (for the time) live performance at Monterey that really made him a star.
Of course, this means the music is limited to his earlier work, but it's still quality stuff (the best Jimi Hendrix albums for me are his third studio album, Electric Ladyland, and also his live album from the early 70s, Band of Gypsys, which is among the best live albums of all time). I did really like his Bob Dylan cover here - he did Like A Rolling Stone, and I think it was the first time I heard his cover of that Dylan song (All Along The Watchtower is ultimately more famous).
So yeah, for fans of rock music, this is a good watch. It's a little short and dry in parts, but it sounds good, and the concert itself is top quality, and demonstrates pretty well why Hendrix is so highly-revered in the world of music.
