Remembering The Night Jimi And His Gypsys Said Goodbye To The 60s

Gyp·sy

One who follows an itinerant or otherwise unconventional career or way of life.....

Imagine it’s New Year’s Eve night 1969 in New York City. You’re in your late teens or early 20s, a future undecided yet on this night only the here and now matters.

It’s bitter cold outside as the sound of cars whizzing by pass through the street chatter all around you. You and your friends are standing with hundreds of fellow shivering cold fans packed close together outside the doors of The Fillmore East on 105 Second Avenue at East 6th Street in Manhatten. Up above you on the marquee in big letters reads “JIMI HENDRIX”. In just moments you are going to see the man who just less than six months ago made rock and roll history at Woodstock.

Finally you hear the sound of the locks rattle and the doors open. The adrenaline surges through your shivering cold body from head to toe as you follow the pack towards the entrance.

Finally you are out of the bitter cold wind and into the warm confines of The Fillmore East. You proudly show your tickets and are led to your seats. Eventually the lights go down and there, just a few feet away, is Jimi Hendrix, Billy Cox and Buddy Miles aka “The Band of Gypsys”.

For someone who was never able to experience that night, I’d like to think it happened that way for those who were at the now legendary New Year's Eve concert inside the Fillmore East in New York City on December 31^st, 1969.

On that night and the following night Jimi Hendrix introduced his new side men, bassist Cox and former Electric Flag drummer Miles, as The Band of Gypsys. The concerts were recorded for an eventual live album called "Band of Gypsys". It’s my personal favorite Jimi Hendrix album. It’s raw, it’s loose, it’s a no-holds-barred jam session.

For those of you who may have been there that night, please feel free to share your memories in the comment section below. I have a friend from my full-time job who recently told me he actually made the trip from Connecticut to the city that New Year’s Eve night with a group of his friends hoping to get a last-minute ticket to the show but no luck. It was sold out. He was about 19 years old at the time and remembers the price of the ticket was around $7.00! He also remembers it being a frigid cold night, below zero with the wind chill.

As you listen to this live album keep in mind that Jimi Hendrix would only have less than nine months left on this planet while the legendary Fillmore East venue didn’t have much longer either. The Fillmore East closed its doors in the summer of 1971. Today it is a bank.

This is a precious moment in time captured on tape.....