by Laurin Hinkle, Kirkwood, PA

I was a budding flower child in a Long Island high school in 1969 or 1970. Can’t be sure the exact date of the concert…wasn’t all calendar conscious. The date for this particular event can be found in Jimi Hendrix material. I had ‘turned on’…tee hee hee…if you know what I mean…such things being no longer politically correct…the children, and all. Problem is: most people of a certain age can’t or won’t talk honestly about ‘youthful…well not really ‘indiscretions’…because….hell, I do not regret a thing…it was my time….our time. And so, we reveled in our time. But, I digress. Jimi Hendrix’s first album, with The Experience, blue my adolescent mind. So, when they were slated to appear at The Singer Bowl (an open-air venue at the site of the New York World’s Fair) I got a friend of mine, Alan F. to go with me to see Hendrix. His parents dropped us off, actually. We paid 15 dollars a ticket from Ticketron (I, think). Fifteen f–kin’ dollars!!!! OK, here’s the lineup: Soft Machine (English prog band I had never heard of, but came to appreciate later), The Chambers Brothers (’Time’ and ‘People Get Ready’), Janis F–kin’ Joplin and the Holding Company (she wore an outfit that had what looked like daisies where here nipples would have been)…then Jimi. Plus, I remember, the stage revolved. And the sad irony that both Joplin and Hendrix would find their lives cut short within a few years time……… Now, Hendix comes on….I am blown away. Every note, I drank into my head. Then Alan starts getting anxious…..his parent told him to meet us by midnight…and it was past twelve. I didn’t get a chance to see Jimi’s whole set. But, we did stay for a couple songs…….. I got to see Jimi again at the Felt Forum (or Madison Square Garden…I am not sure which) after he had just gotten busted in Canada. The line-up was Cat Mother and the All Nite Newsboys, The Buddy Miles Express and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. That time We took the train and saw the whole concert. I love WXPN. Don’t ever take away Stars End. I stay up real late to listen to Chuck Van Zyl.