The Who, Live at Fillmore East, October 1969

From contributing editor Bea Durand comes a first-hand account of seeing the Who in their prime, front row center, during an unprecedented six-day stand at Manhattan’s famed Fillmore East, October 1969.

I’ve been hearing a lot of the Who classics recently: “Love, Reign o’er Me,”  “Who Are You?” Not just on classic rock radio, but on the local college stations that play new releases and rarely play songs from the sixties.

The stations seem to have hooked on to Pete and the boys, and it got me thinking…

The Who. Fillmore East. October, 1969.

Why do I remember seeing them live?

Well to start with, I was five months pregnant at the time.

My love affair with the Who began that night in October. I’d always liked their songs—the lyrics, the arrangements, and Keith Moon’s drum insanity, played in my mind as clear as the vinyl I’d listened to over and over. But seeing them in person is difficult, or even impossible, to describe.

The night started at our favorite Italian restaurant in the West Village. When you’re pregnant, the capacity of your stomach is smaller than usual—a tiny amount of food can make you feel like you’ve eaten for four. Of course, I ate endlessly. Wonderful northern Italian food. And the garlic, oh the garlic.

After dinner, we grabbed a cab and headed down to the Fillmore, excited for our meeting with the Who. I had no idea where our seats were, and couldn’t believe passing row after row towards the stage as the usher directed us to our final destination.

Front row center.

That’s right, the Who—the loudest, most dynamic band in the world—front row center.

This had to be a mistake, right?

Our friends had made all the arrangements. Back in ‘69, you heard a group is coming to town and you hit the pavement, stood online for hours, sometimes up to five or six, and waited for the ticket office to open. You stood patiently in the bitter winter cold, with like-minded rock and rollers, huddled together for your chance to commune with the rock gods for an hour or so, and catch one of the hardest, heaviest, greatest bands to ever rock the planet. Doesn’t seem like a sacrifice, does it?

Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle and Keith Moon took the stage to a howling uproar of wild fans, like caged animals released to act out without reserve. I can’t think of a song I didn’t know, and sang along as best I could. And the garlic permeating my pores filled the air, competing with the wild weed.

Oh, that smell.

I couldn’t smoke, I was pregnant for god’s sake! But all you had to do was inhale to catch a buzz.

Was it the Who or the weed?

The Who was definitely providing the intoxication. Was there a better group on god’s green Earth?

Nope.

I’m not able to express in musical terms how they sounded. All I know is that they were out of sight, out of control, dynamite. Keith hurling sticks like a magic electric light show before it had its name. Roger, dressed like an Indian, on a rampage—sweaty, untamed. And, Pete being Pete: singer, songwriter, arranger, extortioner of that savage Who sound.

The crowning moment: Pete Townshend destroying his guitar. A beautiful, and probably very expensive, guitar. But hey, they were the Who, and they could afford it, and it was almost expected that they exploit and destroy, especially at the famed Fillmore East. My son (I didn’t know at the time I was having a boy—this was pre-sonogram days, when you waited, anticipating and excited at the outcome) jumped in my belly for a good two weeks after the concert.

No exaggeration. I was worried.

I feared consulting a doctor at the possible damage done, exposing my soon-to-be-born son to a pot-infused, hypervolume, wild concert.

Fortunately, the outcome was a boy who loves the Who, shares the same love of the songs played at that very concert, and is a fan to this day.

I can’t think of a better reason to remember the Who, live at the Fillmore East, October, 1969.

Fillmore East photographs by Paul S. Smith, from the October 20, 1969, performance.

Good Night Duck Dunn

Bullets Fly Like Rain, 1970

“Machine Gun”
Band of Gypsys
Fillmore East, New York City
January 1, 1970
First Set

There is not much left to be said about Jimi Hendrix.

He was the greatest electric guitarist who ever lived. Nobody ever came close, and nobody ever will. A thousand more lifetimes of guitar players can never be as inventive or passionate, or just plain bad ass, as Hendrix.

There are countless moments of sonic genius in the Hendrix canon, from the groundbreaking surreal psych-pop of  “Are You Experienced” to the deep scorching future blues of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” but nothing can touch the rendition of “Machine Gun” with Band of Gypsys on January 1, 1970 at New York’s Fillmore East. It is his finest live moment and one of the most extraordinary musical performances ever to be captured on audio and, amazingly, video.

Everything that is beautiful and ruinous in this world is contained in this one song, this one performance. Life, Death, Transcendence. Everything perfectly aligned, harmonious, absolute.

Hendrix was operating outside of time itself, floating free across a deadly serious groove set by his elite rhythm section, drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox. The hardcore bottom end these guys laid down that night is so heavy and rock hard it’s frightening.

This is Hendrix at his astonishing best. A soundscape of savage beauty and eternal destruction.

It is pure sonic poetry of the highest order. And one of the most damning critiques of the Vietnam War.

“Machine Gun” is the second song from the first set performed that night. Hendrix introduces it in a plaintive, reserved manner:

“Happy New Year first of all. I hope you have about a million or two more of them…if we can get over this summer (snarling laugh). We’d like to dedicate this one to uh, to the draggin’ scene that’s goin’ on…all the soldiers that are fightin’ in Chicago and Milwaukee and New York…oh yes, and all the soldiers fighting in Vietnam. I’d like to do a thing called ‘Machine Gun.’”

Hendrix tunes up his Strat and the singular opening figure of the song emerges almost out of thin air, setting an ominous, molten tone. The rhythm section barrels in with what will become a recurring theme of machine gun snare blasts. The band fills in hard and heavy behind Hendrix as he begins to build his howling protest.

Hendrix approaches the first vocal section, doubling the opening phrases of guitar with his voice. A melancholy sadness wrapped around desperate words of anguish.

Machine Gun
Tearing my body all apart

Machine Gun, yeah
Tearing my body all apart

Evil man make me kill ya
Evil man make you kill me
Evil man make me kill you
Even though we’re only families apart

Well I pick up my axe and fight like a farmer
(You know what I mean)
Hey! And your bullets keep knocking me down

Hey, I pick up my axe and fight like a farmer now
Yeah, but you still blast me down to the ground

The same way you shoot me down, baby
You’ll be going just the same
Three times the pain,
and your own self to blame
Hey, Machine Gun

And then, the moment of transcendence.

At minute 4:17 in the video, Hendrix lets fly a series of sustained notes that are unprecedented—a hailstorm of bullets piercing the heavens—complete and total annihilation. Hendrix takes off as the guitar glides through regions of severe melodic shifts and burning sunsets of weeping, fluid sound. His most progressive, radically charged solo takes center stage and every last human cell of the audience and every last fiber of the Fillmore is forever changed, reconstituted…enlightened.

The howling protest continues for several minutes as Buddy Miles slams back in with carpet-bombing drumming, ripping through the song’s structure, tearing apart any hope of reprieve.

Crushing, eternal and as heavy as a war on the other side of the globe on the first evening of the new decade.

January 1, 1970.

After the solo, the final verses commence and the rhythm section intones a ghostly vocal backup as Hendrix comes to terms with the widespread wreckage. He is now almost defiant, unfazed, accepting of the harsh reality of the world he is living in, the dark new horizon of this New Year’s Day.

I ain’t afraid of your mess no more, babe
I ain’t afraid no more
After a while, your, your cheap talk don’t even cause me pain,
so let your bullets fly like rain

’Cause I know all the time you’re wrong baby
And you’ll be going just the same
Yeah, Machine Gun
Tearing my family apart
Yeah, yeah, alright
Tearing my family apart

Buddy Miles enters with a series of solo vocal pleas:

Don’t you shoot him down
He’s ’bout to leave here
Don’t you shoot him down
He’s got to stay here
He ain’t going nowhere
He’s been shot down to the ground
Oh where he can’t survive, no, no

Hendrix then wanders through the destruction, looking for one last shred of hope, but of course there is nothing as final as the parade of death that war has brought forth.

Hendrix finally rages, exploding with a cascade of sonic assaults and fiery bombs raining from black skies.

And then…nothingness.

Silence.

The audience is awestruck, unable to process or come to terms with what they have witnessed for the past 13 minutes.

“Yeah, that’s one we don’t want to hear anymore, right?” — Hendrix

“No bullets, no guns, no bombs.” — Miles

Band of Gypsys performed “Machine Gun” four times over the course of four sets during their two-night stand at the Fillmore. Each version holds its own emotional space, each expressing alternate sides of similar emotions and expanding the central themes at the song’s core, but this performance on January 1 stands as the ultimate realization of Jimi’s unsurpassed genius and the most perfectly fulfilled rendition of the song.

It is the power of soul, and the power of a song so in and of the moment it becomes a signpost, a legendary missive defining a long-gone era, transmitted across all space and time, by one of the greatest artists who ever lived.

Good Night Levon

A Dose of Lithium

Hank III, Live in New York City, 2012

Hank III
Gramercy Theatre
March 17, 2012
New York City

This is not your grandfather’s country music.

In fact, it’s the music of the Third Generation.

Hank Williams III, son of the half-baked Bocephus, grandson of the immortal Hank Williams, practices a radical form of outlaw country, existing so far outside the contemporary Nashville establishment that most people don’t know he even exists or that his lineage is legendary.

If you thought you knew what modern country music was, you were deathly mistaken.

Hank III is a shape-shifter. His form of country is the Bakersfield sound whacked out on pills, sped up honky-tonk with a bruising attitude. There is also his brand of hellbilly, which incorporates hardcore and a snarling punk aesthetic. You notice a Misfits sticker on Hank’s guitar. Cowpunk never sounded so raw, intense, alive.

But then there’s something else…

Hank III is also a devout metalhead.

Thirty minutes into his live set, there is a turn towards a much darker strain of American music. The band exits, leaving Hank and his drummer to scrap it out. Lights drop and Hank removes his hat, letting his hair fall, completely masking his face. The transformation is complete, and the doom metal set begins. The voice mutated, strained beyond recognition, the high-lonesome sound of the earlier songs trampled underfoot.

Heavy chords, plodding drums, the classic sludge sound reimagined.

And then, something more…

Another iteration, a blacker form of metal, with nods to Norway and Sweden. A second guitarist is added, brandishing a Flying V. Hank dons a leather battlesuit with spikes. They both cover their faces with black bandanas and the well-worn cowboy hats return.

Metal terrorists mining territory unknown to the modern country enthusiast.

The set changes yet again, with Hank riffing hard with only the drummer in an old-school metal way. Something more akin to early thrash, with furious, hyperextended guitar solos.

Who knew Hank could shred like this?

Two solid hours of country, honky-tonk, hellbilly, hardcore, punk, doom, metal—all performed with a burning sense of truth, history and mission by Hank Williams III. What more could a rabid music fan want on a Saturday night in New York City?

When all is said and done, Hank III occupies a completely unique space in modern music, standing firm at the edge of the plank, ready and willing to dive head first into the abyss of artistic reinvention, historical revision and unfettered creative possibility.

Where will he go from here?

Photos and video by the Concert Club for the Rock File

Fantastic LA, 1969

Morrison Hotel promotional ad, 1970.

“The most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard.”

- rock critic Dave Marsh on Morrison Hotel

The Doors gather at the Morrison Hotel in downtown Los Angeles with photographer Henry Diltz. It’s a crumbling beauty, frozen in the LA of the 1940s. Ancient lampshades in a noir lobby. Pale brown lounge chairs. Two dollar and fifty-cent rooms. The perfect place to shoot for the Doors’ fifth album.

Unfortunately, the hotel management doesn’t agree.

You’ll have to speak to the owner. I’ve got work to do.

The Doors, radical, anti-authority beatniks that they are, break rank, sneak in and take a quick series of clandestine shots.

Classic, iconic.

That was easy.

Afterwards, they head to skid row to drink with the locals at the Hard Rock Cafe, which is nothing like the tourist trap restaurant chain that took its name many years later.

The band drinks ice-cold Bud bottles with the winos and the down-and-outers, the true denizens of the LA underground.

All is well.

The Morrison Hotel and the Hard Rock Cafe are no longer, but the images captured on that December day in 1969 have forever tied the Doors to the gritty streets of the City of Angels.

The original album cover and interior:

The Morrison Hotel series outtakes:

The Hard Rock Cafe series outtakes:

Photographs by Henry Diltz