Jimi Hendrix Experience Stuttgart Show January 19, 1969

American guitarist Jimi Hendrix and his band the Experience came to Germany in January 1969 for a European tour. Vintage Rock Posters is searching for original concert posters and tour blanks produced by Gunther Kieser. The promoter was Lippmann + Rau, whose name is printed just below Hendrix's on each poster's top.

Vintage Rocks Posters offers cash rewards up to $20,000 for the following concert posters. For details, please go to the home page.

The Experience came to Stuttgart on Sunday, January 19th, and the first time a big-name rock band had come to town. The Hendrix concerts were an absolute sensation for the whole region. The band played at 5 pm and 8 pm. In 2010, a radio broadcast about this concert occurred with many interviews by people who attended the show.

Michael Russ, a local organizer of the concert, said, "I can still remember very well how exhausted the audience was. The people were stunned after the concert, but it was an unbelievable evening and musically also moving for me." Another attendee named Andy Goldner mentioned he went to both shows, and the audience was full of people "who are somehow interested in anything other than mainstream." The concert was jam-packed with American GIs because of all the bases in the area. They would stand up and salute when Hendrix played the American Anthem. He did not "know to what extent they were serious or whether it was a pastiche." Most people commented on the loudness of the performance, and it was almost painful to the ears. The sound quality was poor because live music sound systems were in the infancy. You could see Mitch Mitchell playing the drums but not hear him until Hendrix made a break.

Goldner gets close to describing why Jimi Hendrix is still so popular 50 years later. "Hendrix was, of course, the alternative to all straight normal life... For that reason alone, he was attractive to many people who wanted something different because he embodied that, his music, his shows, looks, clothes, everything... Incredible, the feeling of being in the same room with such a combo and mainly Jimi… was completely organic… a primal experience."

Did you find this article helpful? Feel free to share it on Facebook by using the buttons below.