Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock is a very different event from Monterey; almost a black light version of it. Like a lot of things – including Altamont – it hadn’t started out that way.
In fact, his appearance was almost an accident. After the breakup of the Experience the previous spring, he was up in Shokan, New York, putting together his second band and inventing a new extraplanetary sound. Shokan was only 50 miles from Bethel, where Woodstock was held, so it was a convenient – if risky – place to try out his new material and his new band, but then Hendrix was always a high-wire performer who fed on live current.
