Great story about Jimi Hendrix's free concert in San Francisco

[ificandream]

With I'd been there.

Remembering Jimi Hendrix's psychedelic takeover of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park

By Charles Russo/SF Gate (San Francisco Chronicle)

Jimi Hendrix placed his guitar in the front seat and then proceeded to sit in the back.

Despite being the hottest new act in popular music on that summer day — June 25, 1967 — he was traveling alone without any entourage. In fact, when Jeffrey McMeans knocked on the door of room 152 at the Travelodge near Fisherman’s Wharf, he was surprised to discover Hendrix quietly waiting by himself to be picked up.

Just an hour prior, McMeans, a 24-year-old San Francisco State student, was at a meeting in the Psychedelic Shop on Haight Street, volunteering his time in support of an on-the-fly free concert in Golden Gate Park. When shop co-owner Jay Thelin asked if anyone had a car, McMeans raised his hand. Soon after, he was chauffeuring Hendrix back across town in his dilapidated vehicle — a 1959 Studebaker with holes in the ragtop roof — on a foggy Sunday afternoon.

As they headed south through the city toward the Haight-Ashbury, Hendrix sat in the back seat, shy and polite, wearing a black and gold Victorian-era military jacket that he had found in a secondhand clothing store in London. McMeans was also sporting some vintage apparel of his own, in the form of a woman’s fur that he had fashioned into some sort of Davy Crockett cap crossed with a Russian babushka headpiece. Hendrix couldn’t help but comment on how cool it was.

Read more: https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/jimi-hendrix-golden-gate-park-17279630.php

Note: I suspect the poster is a fake, but ...

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Couldn't have been the Monterey Strat

He smashed and burned it the week before at the Monterey Pop festival.

That kind of makes the rest of the story suspect.

I mean, the concert happened, but the rest of the story…?

[ificandream]

3. The video wasn't a part of the story.

I found it in a separate search. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised it was wrong. I'm removing the video.

[ProfessorGAC]

5. About That Guitar

For many years Frank, then Dweezil Zappa had that in their collection. (Or so the story goes)
Pretty sure Dweezil shed it in a charity auction for about a half-million.
Big money, but nothing compared to the Woodstock Strat which went for nearly $2 million.

[randr]

2. Around that same time Jimi played in Denver

The show was in the gymnasium of Regis College and may have been free or maybe $5. The three of them set up on the gym floor and blew a house of less than 500 away. Following the gig he headed over to The Family Dog, a Denver venue with it's own story. There he met local players, Tommy Bolan and Otis Taylor, both in their teens, and played to the wee hours. A splendid time was shared by all.

[spike jones]

4. I saw Hendrix play at the Orange Show Arena in San Bernadino in 1970.

Good show good acid.
The place was over-sold and the people that could not get in burnt two police cars. Thirty years later in Seattle, I worked with a young woman who said her Mom was at the same concert tripping on acid too.
Yeah, I know.
What do you think the chances are of two people being on acid at a Hendrix show?