ONE LAST STAND: Winter Festival For Peace: January 28, 1970

Jan 28 2025

by Dave Thompson.

Wednesday, January 28, 1970, wasn’t really that memorable a day, even in Vietnam. Navy Lt. Everett Alvarez Jr. was spending his 2,002nd day in captivity, the longest serving American POW in history. The “Big Red One,” the first US infantry division to land in Vietnam, was preparing to go home under President Nixon’s recently announced, “Phase III Redeployment,” and the military was still wondering how to counter the North Vietnamese forces’ apparent mastery of U.S. codes. Just a few weeks earlier, an Allied artillery battery had come within moments of hammering friendly positions near Saigon, after receiving fluent, and perfectly coded orders to do so.  

Back home, the investigation into the My Lai massacre was underway, and in Chicago, seven men – including Jerry Rubin and Abie Hoffman – were on trial for inciting violence during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water was the #1 album; The Beatles’ Hey Jude compilation was #2 – and in just 12 days, Paul McCartney would announce he’d quit the band, and the Fab Four was no more. M.A.S.H. star Alan Alda was celebrating his 34th birthday; Seattle Seahawks tackle James Atkins was just being born; and there was nothing to watch on TV, so the “Winter Festival For Peace” at Madison Square Garden was a temptation for anyone with an ear for an all-night party. 

The cause was a good one – the Vietnam Moratorium Committee (VMC), under protracted covert assault by the FBI, was fighting for its life, even as the anti-war movement swelled around it. When Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary stepped in, offering to stage a major concert for the VMC’s benefit, the organizers were only too pleased.  

So was Jimi Hendrix. Ever since he played the “United Block Association Benefit” in Harlem on September 5, 1969, he’d been telling friends and associates how he wanted to do more shows like that, more gigs, which gave something back to the community, in return for all it had given to him. His feelings about Vietnam, too, were no secret, and the invitation to play had barely been relayed through Alan Douglas, than Jimi was excitedly planning his performance.

Of course he would be headlining; of course, too, he would be reconvening the Band Of Gypsys, whose four performances over New Years at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East, he knew, still left them with something to prove. Too many doubters, too many cynics, too many people convinced he’d just cruised through the performance, as though the sheer virtuosity on display was enough—and actually giving people a taste of it wasn’t part of the deal. This time around, he’d show them all. 

Or would he? There were some nagging doubts in his mind as well, a sense that no matter how well the three musicians on stage gelled with one another individually, the chemistry binding the trio wasn’t all it could be… wasn’t, just for example, what he’d grown accustomed to with The Experience. Most of the time, he swept those doubts away; there was little chance that he would work again with Noel Redding. But Mitch Mitchell, on the other hand… Jimi never had a problem with Mitch, and so far, as he knew the feeling was mutual. Even as Jimi rehearsed the Gypsys through the few days remaining before the Festival, he couldn’t help but compare Buddy Miles to Mitch… and there was no comparison.

“I was very tired. Fighting the biggest war I ever fought in my life, inside.”
~ Jimi Hendrix

Later, he’d reflect, “sometimes, there’s a lot of things that add up in your mind about this and that, and they might hit you at a very peculiar time. [I was] going through head changes… I don’t know, I was very tired.” He was, he said, “fighting the biggest war I ever fought in my life, inside.” There was no way he could know it at the time, but he’d be leaving the battlefield at the peace rally. How appropriate. 

The Festival was coming together quickly. With Jimi already sewn up, other artists flooded to join him on the bill, a broad spectrum of acts guaranteed to appeal to any music lover on the block: Harry Belafonte, with his calypso-tinged soul; Dave Brubeck, jazzman supreme; Judy Collins and Peter, Paul and Mary, folkie protest singers, who’d remind everybody that the music wasn’t the only point of the evening; McHenry Boatwright, The Rascals, Richie Havens, Mother Earth, Blood Sweat And Tears, The Voices Of East Harlem, plus the cast of Hair. 

From the moment the music began, at 8.30 that evening, to the moment the last of the “support” acts left the stage, a little after 2.30 the following morning, the Festival was nothing short of triumphant. And as the Band Of Gypsys prepared to take the stage, and the crowd noise grew in eager anticipation, nobody doubted that no matter how forgettable the rest of the day had been, this evening would remain with them forever. 

Seated about halfway back across the auditorium, 14-year-old Mike Lawson was especially excited. He’d been a Hendrix fan for years… well, for six months anyway, since he’d heard about the Woodstock Festival from his sister, who was there, and all about the magical sunrise, when Jimi awoke even the deepest sleeper with a show which set the sun on fire. He’d bribed his mom to let him attend, it’d be six months before he finished all the chores he’d agreed to, but his sister loaned him the money for his ticket, and she didn’t even complain about having to go to the show with her dorky little brother in tow. One look at the walls of his bedroom, the newspaper cuttings and pictures he’d stuck on every available surface, had convinced her that he knew precisely how to behave. Hell, it was nearly 3 a.m. and he wasn’t even tired yet! 

Looking back over 30 years, Lawson still remembers the show vividly. “I couldn’t go to the Fillmore gigs; no way was I going to be allowed out all night on New Year’s Eve. But I’d clipped all the reviews, from the papers, from Rolling Stone, and I was so angry with them, that they’d written so many negative things about the show – even at that age, I understood, or thought I did, what Hendrix was trying to do. It didn’t make sense to me that he should be slagged like that, just for trying something different. So, I wanted to go along, and I was going to cheer my heart out, so it wouldn’t matter if everybody else there hated what he did, there’d still be one person loving every minute of it.” 

As showtime approached, it sounded like a lot of other people felt the same way. A roar began building even before Peter Yarrow stepped out to welcome the band onstage; by the time he’d finished his introduction, the entire Garden was in uproar. “Friends… I think I can say ‘friends’ after the length of time we’ve been living together… this is certainly the moment I’ve been waiting for, and I’m sure all of you have. Mr. Jimi Hendrix and his Band of Gypsys!” 

In Lawson’s imagination, a band would sweep on stage and simply explode into the first number. At the Garden, they ambled and simply messed around. Jimi began tuning his guitar, and over the crowd noise, you could hear him talking to the other musicians – “I think it’s in the key of D, or A, or G, something like that.” 

A voice floated out of the audience, calling for “Foxey Lady.” Jimi, his mind somewhere else entirely, turned and said something about “the foxy lady sittin’ over there. With the yellow underwear, stained and dirty with blood.” Then Billy Cox opened the bass riff to “Who Knows,” the same song the band opened the Fillmore (January 1, 1970 – 1st set) show with; Buddy picked up the beat, and Jimi… Jimi really didn’t do that much of anything. 

Backstage, rumors were already fluttering around, that Hendrix shouldn’t have been playing the show; that he shouldn’t really have been doing anything that night. Anyone who knew him also knew that something wasn’t right, from the moment he arrived at the venue. Normally, Hendrix was everywhere, saying hello to friends and acquaintances, passing a few words with the other performers, geeing them up before they went out to play. Tonight, he simply drifted into the dressing room, lost and silent amid his usual entourage of hangers-on, then he sat with his head in his hands all evening, not moving or speaking until it was time to take the stage. Nobody spoke to him, and he spoke to nobody.

Did he eat anything before he went on? Did he drink anything? Did he take anything? There was another rumor, that somebody… manager Mike Jeffery is the favorite culprit, if only because he’s long dead and can’t argue… somebody gave Jimi a tab of bad LSD. Or was it girlfriend Devon Wilson, passing him a spiked soda just before he went onstage? That’s what Jimi apparently told people later, and maybe one or the other did do that. Devon, according to Jimi’s logic, wanted to prove her power over him; Jeffery, according to the conspiracy theorists, simply wanted to screw up a show he’d never approved of. Hendrix needed to be making money, not giving it away to cockamamie charities. 

Either way, whatever happened, the man with the guitar on stage that night had already lost touch with his reason for being there, and now he was losing touch with the people he was there with. Behind him, the drums were turning to soup, a militaristic miasma with no soul, no depth, no feeling. The bass was a mess, rhythmless, heartless, soul-less. His guitar was useless, it yowled and fretted and squawked, but the sounds he wanted simply wouldn’t come out. Almost without thinking, or so it seemed to the watching, wondering, multitudes, the song drifted to an unprotesting conclusion, and Jimi just stood there like a lump. 

From his seat halfway back, Mike Lawson let out a wild, unrestrained “Whooooo!” – one he’d been practicing in his mind for days now – and immediately wished that he hadn’t. He wasn’t the only person in the vast auditorium to cheer, applaud, scream and act crazy, but he felt, rather than saw, a few nearby heads turn towards him, and wonder who brought that dumb little kid in there. Didn’t he realize they were watching a legend die of shame up there? Was he really so stupid? There and then, he thought that maybe, he was. 

“That’s what happens when earth ****s with space. Never forget that. Never forget that.”
~ Jimi Hendrix

Up on stage, Hendrix was about to try again, this time with “Earth Blues,” another number from the last show. But did he really care? Did he remember the words? It seemed he didn’t; he sang a few lines, then went into a solo, one which itself forgot the song, forgot the band, forgot all the constraints that make a song a song. For a moment there, he was flying… but only for a moment, because then the acid kicked in again, or the doubts, or the sheer boredom of the whole affair, and suddenly he stopped. Stepping up to the microphone, he seemed to be addressing the crowd, but maybe he was simply talking to himself. “That’s what happens when earth ****s with space,” he said. “Never forget that. Never forget that.” And then he sat down. Jimi Hendrix sat down, and even people who’d never seen him before, stood up, wondering what was going on up there? 

“ We’re… not… quite getting it together. Give us a bit more time because it’s hard, and things are not exactly okay yet. So just bear with us a few minutes, and we’ll see if we can do something together.”
~ Buddy Miles

So was Buddy Miles. Offering up what remains one of the all-time great understatements, he reached for his own mic. His voice sounded shaky; his words fractured as he tried to comprehend the sheer enormity of the musical disaster unfolding before him.  “We’re… not… quite getting it together. Give us a bit more time because it’s hard, and things are not exactly okay yet. So just bear with us a few minutes, and we’ll see if we can do something together.” 

Then he turned back round to look at Jimi… and Jimi wasn’t there anymore. He’d walked off stage while Miles was rapping, and now he was shut up in his dressing room, clutching his stomach and praying that the awful stomach cramps would ease up enough for him to get out of his stage clothes, out of the theater, out of this whole ghastly mess. But the only words Buddy would hear from him would come through the mouthpiece of Mike Jeffery. “The trip’s over.” The Band Of Gypsys disbanded on the spot.

“It’s like it’s the end of a beginning. I figure that Madison Square Garden is like the end of a big, long fairy tale, which is great. It’s the best thing I could possibly have come up with.”
~ Jimi Hendrix

It would be another couple of weeks before Jimi himself could address the issue; weeks during which the backstage wheels turned and his whole mindset seemed to spin around on itself. The Experience were reuniting, The Experience were going to tour, The Experience were going to expunge the whole ghastly mess from his mind forever. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was back, and the Band Of Gypsys, he told Rolling Stone’s John Burks, “it’s like it’s the end of a beginning. I figure that Madison Square Garden is like the end of a big, long fairy tale, which is great. It’s the best thing I could possibly have come up with.”

Thirty years on, and still remembering the pain of that night, Mike Lawson still doesn’t agree with him.