Fact #118213
When:
Short story:
On their first appearance at The Marquee, London, UK, the Jimi Hendrix Experience breaks the house record. Support band is The Syn.Full article:
Peter Banks (guitarist, The Syn) : It was a very peculiar gig. All The Beatles were there and The Rolling Stones. Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and every other guitar player in town came along and we had to play one set to all these people. They were waiting for Jimi Hendrix but we had to play once, come off and then play another set. So people were going. 'Well thank God they've gone.' Then we came back on again. It wasn't very nice for us, but it was great meeting Hendrix.
(Source : not known)
Peter Banks : I didn't enjoy the night at all because Syn had to play two sets and we had, you know, a lot of pretty famous people in the audience and we had to come on and do one set, go off, and then come back and do another set, which was a terrible thing to do because everybody certainly didn't come to see us! Well, a few people did but not many, everybody came to see Jimi Hendrix. So I didn't find it very enjoyable at all. I think Syn played O.K. and Hendrix was very good. I had already see him play a few times and Jimi was very nervous about the whole thing, he was asking me, you know: 'Who's out here?' (laugh). Because the audience was right after the stage, The Marquee was never a big club, so you could see the first ten rows of people. And you could probably see everybody, you know, The Beatles were there and a lot of guitarists were there… (including, reportedly, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, Robert Fripp)
For me, it was strange because I was the only other guitar player playing, apart from Hendrix, but actually it didn't really bother me that much. I think we had played The Marquee Club a few times and really was a bit of a tiresome gig to have to do. It was always very difficult to get in and out of the club because there was no ... The Marquee dressing room was always behind to the left of the stage, and it was just a tiny, tiny room, more like a little narrow corridor. And everybody that played would share this room, and if we'd got out from the room we had to go through a big part of the audience if you wanted to the pub next door or even to the toilet. You would have to walk through some of the audience and it was very difficult to walk in and out because it was so full of people. So I remember it being very hard, very sweaty. The Marquee had no air-conditioning at all, it's amazing that nobody ever died!
No bar, not then. And the condensation used to drip off the walls, water falling off the walls just from the heat of the audience. They had a couple of fans, the couple of ceiling fans but there was no air-conditioning whatsoever so it was always hot and sweaty. You know, that kind of made it... it added to the atmosphere.
(Source : http://www.themarqueeclub.net/interview-peter-banks-yes)
Pete Townshend : There was something else, other than music, going on. Hendrix was a great player, but he wasn't really creative. He was dealing in other people's ideas, old blues things and tricks that were either borrowed from Eric – that Marshall kind of style – or the pyrotechnic things that he had caught off watching me.
(Source :http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/classic-guitar-interview-pete-townshend-1990-530325)
Pete Townshend : The thing that really stunned Eric and me was the way he took what we did and made it better. And I really started to try to play. I thought I'd never, ever be as great as he is but there's certainly no reason now why I shouldn't try. In fact I remember saying to Eric, I'm going to play him off the stage one day. But what Eric did was even more peculiar, he said, Well, I'm going to pretend that I am Jimi Hendrix!
(Source :http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/classic-guitar-interview-pete-townshend-1990-530325)
Eric Clapton : I felt an incredible sense of relief that there was somebody else on the planet who was as devoted to that music as I was. Of course, he was a showman. But he knew what the blues was about. I was really keen to get to know him and spend time with him. But he was an elusive guy and he wasn’t that available for friendship. I still don’t know what the real deal was with him or what his motives were or what the long-term plan was, or even if he had one. He definitely pulled the rug out from under Cream, though. I told people like Pete Townshend about him and we’d go and see him at different clubs and I wondered how he was going to make what he did work on record.
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(Source : not known)
Peter Banks : I didn't enjoy the night at all because Syn had to play two sets and we had, you know, a lot of pretty famous people in the audience and we had to come on and do one set, go off, and then come back and do another set, which was a terrible thing to do because everybody certainly didn't come to see us! Well, a few people did but not many, everybody came to see Jimi Hendrix. So I didn't find it very enjoyable at all. I think Syn played O.K. and Hendrix was very good. I had already see him play a few times and Jimi was very nervous about the whole thing, he was asking me, you know: 'Who's out here?' (laugh). Because the audience was right after the stage, The Marquee was never a big club, so you could see the first ten rows of people. And you could probably see everybody, you know, The Beatles were there and a lot of guitarists were there… (including, reportedly, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, Robert Fripp)
For me, it was strange because I was the only other guitar player playing, apart from Hendrix, but actually it didn't really bother me that much. I think we had played The Marquee Club a few times and really was a bit of a tiresome gig to have to do. It was always very difficult to get in and out of the club because there was no ... The Marquee dressing room was always behind to the left of the stage, and it was just a tiny, tiny room, more like a little narrow corridor. And everybody that played would share this room, and if we'd got out from the room we had to go through a big part of the audience if you wanted to the pub next door or even to the toilet. You would have to walk through some of the audience and it was very difficult to walk in and out because it was so full of people. So I remember it being very hard, very sweaty. The Marquee had no air-conditioning at all, it's amazing that nobody ever died!
No bar, not then. And the condensation used to drip off the walls, water falling off the walls just from the heat of the audience. They had a couple of fans, the couple of ceiling fans but there was no air-conditioning whatsoever so it was always hot and sweaty. You know, that kind of made it... it added to the atmosphere.
(Source : http://www.themarqueeclub.net/interview-peter-banks-yes)
Pete Townshend : There was something else, other than music, going on. Hendrix was a great player, but he wasn't really creative. He was dealing in other people's ideas, old blues things and tricks that were either borrowed from Eric – that Marshall kind of style – or the pyrotechnic things that he had caught off watching me.
(Source :http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/classic-guitar-interview-pete-townshend-1990-530325)
Pete Townshend : The thing that really stunned Eric and me was the way he took what we did and made it better. And I really started to try to play. I thought I'd never, ever be as great as he is but there's certainly no reason now why I shouldn't try. In fact I remember saying to Eric, I'm going to play him off the stage one day. But what Eric did was even more peculiar, he said, Well, I'm going to pretend that I am Jimi Hendrix!
(Source :http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/classic-guitar-interview-pete-townshend-1990-530325)
Eric Clapton : I felt an incredible sense of relief that there was somebody else on the planet who was as devoted to that music as I was. Of course, he was a showman. But he knew what the blues was about. I was really keen to get to know him and spend time with him. But he was an elusive guy and he wasn’t that available for friendship. I still don’t know what the real deal was with him or what his motives were or what the long-term plan was, or even if he had one. He definitely pulled the rug out from under Cream, though. I told people like Pete Townshend about him and we’d go and see him at different clubs and I wondered how he was going to make what he did work on record.