The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival (2015)

About 100 miles south of Atlanta, next to a field just outside the town of Byron, Jimi Hendrix played his biggest ever US concert on 4th July, 1970 (to an estimated crown of 300,000-400,000). The massive Second Atlanta International Pop Festival was hailed then as the ‘Southern Woodstock’ and is now being recognized as the last great US Rock Festival.

Hendrix’s historic Independence Day appearance (a mere ten weeks before his passing) saw the musical icon, along with bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell in rare form, tearing through Hendrix’s classic material (“Purple Haze”, “Fire”, a cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower”) and introducing the crowd to works intended for his in-progress fourth studio album, including “Room Full Of Mirrors”, “Hear My Train A-Comin’”, “Freedom” and “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)”. Another highlight of the set was Jimi’s rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner,” played against a backdrop of exploding fireworks.

Jimi’s performance was not only significant on a musical level, but also in terms of socio-political dynamics. The organisers were keen to push back against the cultural divide that was very much in evidence in the Deep South. It was assumed that rural audiences would not take kindly to “long-hair” bands, and that black and white artists could not comfortably exist on the same bill. Atlanta Pop set out to challenge those beliefs, and Hendrix’s music and message of universal love made him the ideal artist to represent that pushback. Against incredible odds, the event proved to be largely peaceful, and Jimi’s legendary set can be enjoyed in full on Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival.