Jimi Hendrix / Mitch Mitchell / Billy Cox

"Rainbow Bridge Vibratory Color / Sound Experiment", Haleakala Volcano Crater, Maui, Hawaii
July 30, 1970
Soundboard Recording / 2nd Gen / 1st & 2nd Shows / 105 min.

Safety Master Reel > VHS > Tape > MD > WAV > FLAC

This is the version with the drums overdubbed by Mitch Mitchell at Electric Lady Studios, N.Y in 1972.
It's unconfirmed but I wonder if the bass wasn't also redubbed (even partly) by Billy Cox at the same period?
This is 2 analog + 1 digital generations away from the original stereo safety masters but the digital transfer was
Mini-Disc (that can't make it 100% 'true lossless'). I never come across an as good version without MD copy in.
When Alan Douglas was in charge of the "vault", soundboards went in and out...
One of these was the Maui overdubbed stereo safety master that was copied to VHS in the late 70s or
early 80s (long before DATs & CDRs !) and then came back to the "vault", so the 1st generation VHS copy
remains the best & most complete soundboard source in circulation.
Note that all cuts on this tape are like on the safety master but it is unknown if these cuts are on the multi-track
masters with original drums.
The owner give a few copies to selected people, leaving them with a 2nd generation tape source.
He still has the 1st gen VHS source apparently, but is currently out of the trading business.
This tape has been speed corrected, but no other alterations have been made.
A "Stoned" Conversation with Jimi Hendrix, Pat Hartley & Chuck Wein is added as bonus on disc 2.
My full artwork is also included, enjoy !


Disc 1:
01. Chuck Wein Intro
02. Tune Up
03. Spanish Castle Magic
04. Lover Man
05. Hey Baby (The Land of the New Rising Sun) >
06. In From the Storm
07. Message to Love
08. Foxy Lady
09. Hear My Train a Comin'
10. Voodoo Child (Slight Return) >
11. Drum Solo >
12. Fire
13. Purple Haze

Disc 2:
01. Dolly Dagger >
02. Villanova Junction >
03. Ezy Ryder
04. Red House
05. Freedom
06. Beginning >
07. Straight Ahead
08. Hey Baby (The Land Of The New Rising Sun) >
09. Midnight Lightning >
10. Race With The Devil >
11. Drum Solo >
12. Stone Free >
13. Hey Joe >
14. Stone Free (Reprise)


Enjoy, Share & Preserve Quality !
Brought to You by BP
[August 2007]


From Chris Dixon's 30th Anniversary Series © C S Dixon

July 30, 2000 marks 30 years since Jimi's appearance at the 'Rainbow Bridge Vibratory Colour-Sound Experiment', at the Haleakala Crater on the island of Maui, Hawaii, part of the filming of the movie 'Rainbow Bridge'. Jimi had been involved in the movie by his manager and by most accounts wanted little to do with the whole business. His speaking parts in the movie amounted to little more than a couple of stoned raps (though they are interesting as a window into Jimi's 'stream of consciousness' thought process). Suffice to say that without Jimi's participation we probably would never have heard of this movie. Luckily for us, he was convinced to play a concert for the film, which would become the only reason to see the movie! The concert forms a fairly small part of the movie, and although relatively little music (and mostly incomplete) made it to the final cut, the movie's concert sequences remain at this time the only officially released music from the concert. The so-called 'Rainbow Bridge Soundtrack' album (the second posthumous Hendrix album, from '71) contained no music from Maui. Fortunately, almost all of the music played this day circulates on soundboard (audience tapes also exist). The concert took place on a high ridge on Maui (locals apparently called it 'Rainbow Ridge', hence the (slightly altered) name of the movie) somewhere near the Seabury Hall private school, the site of the movie shoot. Legend often has it that Jimi played in a mountaintop volcanic crater, but footage of the actual crater near the end of the movie (and accounts by visitors to the area since) reveal it to be a rocky moonscape, unlike the grassy meadow we see in the movie, so chances are that the concert was held downslope a bit. The high wooden stage was built in the middle of a field and festooned with colorful fabrics, looking like a traditional Shakespearean stage or medieval faire (even a little like a sailing ship!). The site was very windy, and the sound crew was forced to wrap the mics in foam rubber to cut the low end rumble from wind on the mic diaphragms. Said foam looks to be more of a closed-cell type used for shock protection (it supposedly was cut from instrument cases) as opposed to open cell, i.e. acoustically transparent, foam. Possibly as a result, Mitch's drums in particular were poorly recorded (also due to technical problems and, from appearances, just plain not enough mics on the drums, foam or not...), so much so that the circulating soundboard tape apparently features drum tracks that Mitch re-recorded after the fact at Electric Lady studios in 1972 ! It was a generally successful experiment, though not totally natural sounding IMO. The movie soundtrack sounds a little better to my ears, though. I'd like to think that modern technology could salvage the original drum tracks but, in all, we have a pretty decent record of what was a very musically adventurous show.

It's reported that Jimi, Mitch and Billy actually set up at Seabury Hall in the days before the concert and rehearsed for the show, something they rarely did on the road (where are the tapes of this!?). It seems they used the rehearsal time to brush up on live arrangements of a number of songs that they'd been working on at Electric Lady over the summer and they treated the relaxed vibe of the show (with a non-paying crowd of only a few hundred) as an open air lab of sorts for the works in progress, resulting in a large percentage of new or rarely played music at the show. It also seems logical they would have done a soundcheck at the concert site for the film and remote recording rigs, but no audio or video record of one has surfaced thus far. Jimi's performance has been referred to as two shows, but it was really in effect one, consisting of two sets with an intermission.

(First set setlist): Spanish Castle Magic; Lover Man; Hey Baby; In From The Storm; Message To Love; Foxy Lady; Hear My Train; Voodoo Child (SR); Fire; Purple Haze

After a short opening set by an acoustic trio and suitably new-age introduction by Chuck Wein (the audience was apparently seated by astrological sign!), the film shows the band mounting the stage from their nearby dressing room tent, Jimi dressed in a never before (nor after) seen Navajo-inspired shirt with metal appliqués (now in a private collection). All available footage of this set has Jimi using the white Strat. We hear Jimi, off mic, say "Uh, I've had mine..." (shades of Woodstock!) and after a little tuning they start with 'Spanish Castle Magic'. Jimi takes a new perspective from the first line, singing "It's not too far away..." instead of "..very far away...". He does a fairly short solo starting at 1:30. The solo after the "hang on my darling" verse features lead lines alternating with the open high E and B strings.

'Lover Man' gets wah on the solo from the start, Jimi atypically rocking it to the rhythm of the music rather than using it to add vowel-like inflections to the phrases. There is a tape cut that causes a jump from the end of the solo to the outro.

The tape cuts to the intro of 'Hey Baby' already in progress. This song had not fared too well on our previous documented outings (Atlanta, Seattle) but here we get a strong and confident version that features vocals for the first time since Berkeley exactly two months earlier (with the next to be Wight exactly one month later). Jimi takes the tempo of the main Am-G-F progression briskly, with the chords sharply attacked ala many versions of 'Villanova Junction'. After some brief introductory soloing, he sings "Hey gypsy baby.." to start. I must admit that the overdubbed drums sound great to me on this one. At the first chorus he sings "May we (instead of "I") come along ?". At 3:10 he takes a nice compact solo, featuring some sliding intervals with an Eastern tonality. At 4:00 we hear some chordal embellishments, then a little more soloing, at times reminiscent of 'Pali Gap'(which had been recorded earlier that month). At 4:35 they change gears...

...and we get the first ever live performance of 'In From The Storm'! This song had also come to fruition in the studio around this time, and would be featured at most of the fall European shows. They start with the riff heard just before the end of the familiar studio version, then back up to start the song proper. Jimi solos over the first verse's progression then starts the vocals at 1:20. He starts the middle solo at 2:30 and they modulate up in key just after. He solos over the new riff in style that would be right at home on the Band of Gypsys record IMO. At 3:25 we get the 'stop' chords with the swooping 'whammy' fills, his low E string going a little flat, and a little more soloing to the final climbing riff at 4:40.

Message To Love' gets a short solo. The bridge has some great ride cymbal work from Mitch, which unfortunately is very low in the mix...even after they had a chance to overdub it! At 3:20 Jimi plays a repeating riff for a good 10 seconds, exploring small nuances of accents within. Climbs to the end at 4:00, finishing with a single crashing chord rather than the resolving improvised chords more typical of the '70 versions. Afterward, it sounds like Mitch has even overdubbed some 'random' between-song drum hits.

'Foxy Lady' is dedicated to "..a girl over there named Hartley", meaning Pat Hartley, who plays the protagonist of sorts in the movie (though that may go a bit far toward suggesting the movie has a plot!). Just before the song starts, we hear Jimi warn "Plug your ears, it's gonna be loud!". The film shows Jimi pulling out all the bump n' grind n' tongue-wagging tricks on this one, almost thumbing his nose at the new-age types. The solo features lots of phrases played with his teeth, at one point alternating quickly between teeth and fingers. A little rough coming out of the reprised feedback note since Mitch is trying to overdub to an entrance which does not follow strict time. Jimi winds up with a few mic stand slides and solo coda, throwing in a riff briefly reminiscent of one from 'In From The Storm'.

Jimi introduces 'Hear My Train' with a variation on his rap about the song's narrative, then jokes "I don't know what it's about, myself..."! Jimi starts out with some offhand riffs, then Billy joins in, then Mitch. The film shows Jimi playing with bare fingers instead of a pick at the start, playing a very clean toned opening solo. He sneaks in a quick tuneup before starting the vocals at 1:50. He does a nice fill after the second stop, throwing in an above-the-nut bend.
The main solo comes at 3:15, starting with some long sustained notes and moving to some faster hammer on / pull offs. He adds the wah at 4:45 and they flirt with a double time feel. He moves to some feedback/whammy work and briefly visits the 'wobbly' vibrato notes as we hear on many 'Machine Gun's (which doesn't appear this day- not the right vibe for war imagery in a sunny Hawaiian meadow, I guess). He alters his last verse to refer, it would seem, to his visit to his hometown of Seattle a few days earlier, singing "I done left that town (in past tense, rather than the usual "gonna leave.."), had to leave that town, trip out and see voodoo child sometime, even try my hand at the magic boy. And I went back to that town...put it all in my shoes...". A little of the 'Gloria' type riff and some sliding chords end it at 9:00+.

'VC(SR)' has the 'swoosh' of the Univibe accentuated by the fuzz. During the solo he adds the wah and manipulates the Univibe's speed control. Film shows a camera man and assistant walking around the stage taking extreme close-ups of the band, but Jimi doesn't look phased and if anything plays a little to the
camera, sinking to his knees and bending back to face up at the camera! He plays for a bit with a fixed wah position and moves through some ever higher riffs. He briefly talks over the music at 5:40, but it's hard to make out. Jimi and Billy hit a riff variation then go to the climbing line from the studio version.
At 6:15 Jimi pulls back to some rhythmic strumming and signals Mitch to take a drum solo, which he does as we see Jimi talking to first the crew, then Billy...

...and after about a minute, they go into 'Fire', the film showing the audience rising to their feet. Jimi's guitar is too quiet and clean at the start of the "move over, Rover.." transition but he corrects it. He again throws in quotes from both 'Outside Woman Blues' and 'Sunshine of Your Love'.

Jimi introduces 'Purple Haze' as one that "...a few of us might remember (and) some of us will never forget, including me". A new lyric variation with "..actin funny, but I don't *care* why, 'scuse me while *we* kiss the sky...". The solo sounds a little cleaner than usual, with the wah. During the outro he does the sustained notes with his fretting hand *over* the neck, interjecting "Not necessarily stoned, but you know how it is...". He does the coda with the teeth, hinting at the 'Who Knows' main riff then quoting the opening of 'Star Spangled Banner'. At the end he says "thank you, peace be with you...like to come back later and get it on again if we can". Sure they can! The film sees fit to make a long clumsy edit out of parts of HMT, VC(SR), PH and back to HMT as if they're one long song...nice try (at least they're all in the key of E!). After a break said to be about 45 minutes Jimi returns to the Maui stage for his second set, continuing to play a healthy slice of new and/or rarely played material. All available footage of the second set shows him playing his Gibson Flying V, so there's a good chance he used it for the entire set.

(Second set setlist): Dolly Dagger; Villanova Junction; Ezy Rider; Red House; Freedom; Beginnings; Straight Ahead; Hey Baby; Stone Free (incl. Hey Joe)

A truly momentous opening for the set as we get the first ever live rendition of 'Dolly Dagger', one of only two concert renditions (thankfully both were pro recorded, the other being from Isle of Wight). One of Jimi's most promising new tunes (may well have been his next single), it did, and would, receive plenty of studio work during summer '70 with the arrangement being further tightened up during the following month. Jimi applies wah to the solo and explores some cool wide string leaps. The familiar lyrics seem to be in place, though Jimi drops a word here and there. They explore a slight variation at the end, sounding a bit like the main riff from 'Izabella', then slow it way down...

... modulating the key and moving into 'Villanova Junction', playing it for the first time in concert since the tour-opening LA Forum show in April (though it was tried as a medley with 'Midnight Lightning' at the Berkeley soundcheck). It's taken briskly, more like the BoG studio version than the famous Woodstock version. He plays the opening octaves with his thumb, Wes Montgomery style, then switches to a pick around :40. He solos at 1:00, briefly speeding up the Univibe around 1:20, then moves through some riffs with an eastern tonality. At one point he seems to want to reach for an above-the-nut bend of the G string up to A as at Woodstock, but the Gibson does not lend itself to such bends as much as the Fender with its greater depth above the nut, so he slurs the G up to the second fret instead. He does some hammer-ons at 2:50 then some chord variations, moving to a rhythmic sound using his knuckles on the guitar face to excite the strings, then modulating down to an E for some flamenco-style playing. He hints at 'Bolero', then at 5:00 playfully throws in a line from 'Little Drummer Boy' (a Christmas carol in Hawaii in July?). After a little more playing reminiscent of 'Woodstock Improvisation' he switches at 5:35...

...to the opening rhythm of 'Ezy Rider', using muted strums on the strings, before Mitch joins in (usually Mitch started the song). He switches to the opening figure (first heard on Noel's 'Dance'), using the wah, at :35. Mitch's overdubbed tom toms are punchy and effective going into the bridge ("how long...").
Just before the solo, Jimi sings "stone happy, stone crazy". Great solo at 2:35, and we hear quintessential Billy fills throughout the song- you can always tell he really enjoyed playing 'Ezy' and he particularly shines on this rendition IMO! A little more soloing before some climbing unison bends to end it at just under 5:00.

Jimi intros 'Red House' as "..a little blues to the sun...", talking over his guitar intro. He starts the song with the Flying V's bridge pickup but switches to both pickups at :30 for the patented Gibson 'nasal' tone. He follows his typical triads which open the 2nd twelve bars with an unusual descending line. Sounds like he's slapping the strings to accompany the second "Wait a minute something's wrong..." line. Follows up with a lyric variation of "...I've got *almost* a bad feeling my baby don't live here no more..." (so at this point he doesn't feel all that bad that she's gone?). He starts the solo at 3:50, aggressively in general but holding back just a bit, building it nicely for two 12 bar rounds. He ends the solo on a trill, holding it until he starts singing the last verse. Throws in a little wah on the ending fill after the last vocal line.

'Freedom' comes next. Another fine rendition, with strong confident soloing from Jimi over the long middle section, featuring some country-ish string bending.
Does a little gtr/voc scatting at the end.

Another nice surprise as they continue with 'Beginnings', its second and final concert appearance (the first having been at Woodstock). The start is slightly cut on circulating tapes, and we join it during the opening 'movement' as Jimi is soloing over the key changes. At :35 it goes to the movement with the shuffle feel ala 'Rainy Day, Dream Away', then becomes the more staccato version of same at 1:15 for a third 'movement'. At 2:00 Jimi takes off on some soling using octaves, then single note lines. He returns to the choppy riff at 4:30, then the band stops for Jimi's unaccompanied 'sliding octave' interlude, leading to Mitch's drum break re-establishing the opening riff. After another minute or so they slow it down and we hear Jimi play some lines that hint at 'Cherokee Mist'. At about 7:30 the band drops back and Jimi does some guitar explorations a bit like the studio '1983...', with the Univibe (which he might well have used on '1983' had it been available at the time!). He does some melodic lines that bring to mind the Beatles 'Within You Without You' and at 8:30 he establishes a groove with some lines reminiscent of the BoG 'We Gotta Live Together', going into a riff virtually identical to the 'Machine Gun' intro...

...to which he starts singing the "Have you heard..." lyric from 'Straight Ahead'. They do the SA bridge then basically start the song at the beginning at about 10:10 into the medley. It's an abbreviated rendition, ending with the "Hello, my friend.." lyric which would eventually open the studio version. They go to a two chord variation of the riff, which Jimi solos over for a few bars, then they strip it down to an Em chord at about 11:25, pausing just long enough for
Jimi to say "Thank you very much"...

...then Jimi continues the meditation on the E chord for about 1:25 (suggesting Fleetwood Mac's 'Albatross' or the Beatles 'Sun King') before slipping into the intro proper for 'Hey Baby', the only song excerpted twice during the 2 Maui sets. At this point a woman has joined them onstage to 'space dance' to the music. They go to the main chords of HB at 1:20 but Jimi never does start the vocals, soloing briefly then slipping into the worked-out riff that would anchor 'Midnight Lightning' as it's own song at IoW a month later. This time they only do the riff a few times, sans vocals, before moving to a double-time feel and a new groove, sounding a bit like a jig or fiddle tune (I've seen it referred to as 'Race With The Devil'). Jimi solos a bit using a very smooth midrange-y tone, ending with a crashing chord about a minute later. Mitch then takes about a 3:00 drum solo...

...Jimi coming back in with the intro to 'Stone Free'. At the break after the first chorus, something causes Jimi to say "Goddamn it!" and momentarily lose his place, quipping "Anyway, where was I...oh right..." as he starts the second verse. He solos at 2:25 but, perhaps distracted (hmm, by the dancing girl?) it's a little rough and he keeps it short, returning to the last chorus at 3:15. Sounds like he's ready to end SF at 3:45, and he segues to the intro for 'Hey Joe' but abandons it after just a couple of bars and the first two words (i.e. the title- gotta be the shortest HJ on record!) and returns to the SF groove, beginning to sound a little more like Jr. Walker's 'Shotgun' (a tune I'm sure Billy and Jimi have in their mutual past...). Jimi solos over the riff a little and winds up the rather loose medley, and the rather loose show, with a descending riff into a last chord with feedback and whammy inflections. With a "Thank you very much, goodnight", thus ends our last recorded Jimi show on American soil (though he would play in Honolulu two nights later).

One of the most unique and interesting shows Jimi ever played IMO, and it's another that screams for a proper and *complete* official audio/video release.