March 31, 1967 Live Appearance The Jimi Hendrix Experience kick off their first UK Tour as part of a month-long packaged tour featuring The Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens, Engelbert Humperdinck, The Californians, The Quotations, and MC Nick Jones

The Jimi Hendrix Experience kick off their first UK Tour as part of a month-long packaged tour featuring The Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens, Engelbert Humperdinck, The Californians, The Quotations, and MC Nick Jones. The first night featured The Experience performing two-sets. Hendrix managed to seal the spotlight on this night, as he lit fire to his guitar during “Fire.” “It was a strange situation, ” explains music reviewer Keith Altham. “because it took him a little while to get it alight. He was having to dodge behind the amplifiers on the stage with a box of matches and it wasn’t going up. Eventually, he did get it going and it sort of took off quite spectacularly. The security guy in the wings was going bananas and trying to rush onstage with a fire extinguisher. Eventually, he did and managed to spray the compere [emcee], we was not too amused. When we came back to the dressing room afterwards all hell broke loose.” “The security guy said, ‘You’ll never work in this circuit again! He’ll never play again at any of these theatres. How dare he do something like that? He could have burned the place down. What did he mean by swinging it around his head?’ Jimi said, ‘Well, I was trying to put it out.'” It was performance stunts like this that quickly earned Hendrix the moniker “The Black Elvis” and “Wild Man of Borneo.”
Set List: (second show / partial) Foxey Lady // Can You See Me / Hey Joe // Purple Haze // Fire

tags: 1967 / Cat Stevens / Engelbert Humperdinck / Finsbury Park / Live / Live Appearance / London / London Astoria / March / March 31 / MC Nick Jones / The Californians / The Jimi Hendrix Experience / The Quotations / The Walker Brothers / United Kingdom