Features
Pollstar Exclusive: ‘How Jimi Hendrix Changed Touring’
On Nov. 18, Experience Hendrix and Sony Legacy will release Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 from the Jimi Hendrix Experience on two-LP vinyl, CD and on digital platforms.
The now-legendary show was just the third at the now-legendary venue and features the original Experience line-up with its eponymous front man, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding. The concert was recorded by Wally Heider and Bill Halverson contemporaneously and recently remixed by longtime Hendrix producer/engineer Eddie Kramer.
On the back of the incredible 1967-68 three-album run of Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland, the Experience had become the hottest touring act in the world, in large part because the band rarely if ever made television appearances and thus could only be experienced live the old-fashioned way: in person.
Among the attendees at the show: ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons, who told Pollstar “It stands as a groundbreaking event. … It was earth shattering.” Read more from Gibbons on the Forum show and Jimi Hendrix in an upcoming edition of our magazine.
Ahead of the album’s release, Sony presents this video, detailing how Hendrix’s power as a touring draw changed the live industry, as he essentially created and demanded the now-standard 90/10 split for artists.
Check the video out below: