Let’s remember when Jimi Hendrix returned to Seattle to play at Seattle Center, on this day in 1968 (February 12)
Jimi Hendrix was (and is), I think unquestionably, the greatest rock and/or roll star to come from Seattle. But he became an internationally-known rock star after leaving Seattle. In 1968, he made his homecoming with a sold out concert at the Seattle Center Arena.
According to Charles Cross’s biography of Hendrix, Room Full of Mirrors:
As for the performance, the band played a standard nine-song set with the greatest crowd reaction coming on “Foxy Lad” and “Purple Haze.” Jimi named off the area’s high schools and got the biggest round of applause when he mentioned Garfield. Tom Robbins reviewed the show for the Helix and called Jimi “a black dwarf cowboy Oscar Wilde in Egyptian drag” with a voice “like raspberry preserves-thick and sweet.” Still, Robbins found Jimi’s showmanship worth applauding: “Despite the shallowness of much of his sound, Hendrix is a hotly exciting performer. What he lacks in content, he makes up in style. He is, in fact, a master stylist; an outrageous exponent of high black showmanship. He is Adam Clayton Powell on DMT and freaking fine, thank you.” Most in the audience were less discerning: Jimi was simply a hometown kid who had made good, and would have been applauded simply for walking on stage.
Per Cross’s book, it was not an easy time for Hendrix to return to Seattle, as the following morning, he had a disastrous assembly at Garfield High School, where his anxiety and nervousness got the better of him. He didn’t perform and instead tried to answer questions but left after just the second question.
Enjoy this recording of another Seattle concert, in 1970, the final year of his life:
