JIMI HENDRIX BOOTLEG - LIVE AT THE FORUM 4-25-1970

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Jimi Hendrix "Live At The Forum April 25, 1970" vinyl bootleg. This bootleg was released in the summer of 1970 and was the first Jimi Hendrix bootleg.  Here's what the web site rockprophecy.com has to say about this recording:

Two decades and 130 Hendrix bootlegs later, I'm convinced that the 1970 L.A. Forum concert is the single greatest Hendrix performance I've ever heard. Only the Berkeley sets rival its importance. The Forum was Jimi's first gig with Mitchell in seven months, and his first concert following the January 1970 disbanding of A Band of Gypsys. After a three-month hiatus, Jimi was ripe for the stage. At the L.A. debut of his new Cry Of Love band, he reached a peak of electrically-charged concentration. Not the slightest trace of fatigue or hesitation is present. The amps sound like they were just overhauled fresh off the assembly line, and the guitar tone is immaculately crisp, full and taut. Not yet strained from weeks on the road, Jimi's singing is powerful and expressive, delivered with sage-like authority. By the middle of the first solo this gig attains mythic proportions. Jimi burns with solar brilliance. Sparklers light up every synapse in his brain. Strings snap off the maple neck Strat like tree trunks cracking in thunderclaps. L.A. '70 captures Jimi's miraculous attack at the max.

Over to 90 stage tapes of Foxy Lady are known, but the 1970 Forum version is in a class by itself. Jimi carves out hollow clusters with lyrically sweet Django Reinhardt delicacy. And if you want to hear what Lover Man is supposed to sound like in concert, L.A. '70 contains the masterpiece of more than two-dozen versions. Jimi whips up layers of ultra-quick rock 'n' roll rhythms. Hear My Train a-Comin' is as dense as it gets. Jimi plays billiards with a series of black holes. Only the Berkeley version (on the 1971 Rainbow Bridge studio LP) compares with the sustained perfection of this April '70 blues. And of 16 live Ezy Ryder recordings, this L.A. cut tops the heap. Chugging along in locomotive bursts, its massive blocks feel like granite slabs slapping the earth. A sci-fi horror-blues, Machine Gun, staggers from mortal wounds and erupts. We hear the most extreme screech in the catalogue of western music. Jimi's hambone back-beats next hurl Room Full of Mirrors through tangible soundwaves. It could be the best take of an inspired studio session. No other concert version matches it. Complicated grace notes glisten with computer precision. A final chord is mounted with the ceremony of a matador positioning for the kill. Jimi lets the open A-string reverberate and pulls-off a top-string trill. Unaccompanied Baroque scales unravel and dissolve into the very first and most serene performance of Hey Baby (Land of the New Rising Sun). Every ornamental tone is placed with ultra finesse. A theater-of-the-absurd Star Spangled Banner doubles as the soundtrack for Frankenstein Runs Amok. Then Jimi lets it all hang out with the shining white knight of all live Voodoo Child versions. Slippery-slick guitar growls anticipate fluid synthesizer effects heard years later.