Jimi Hendrix - Magic Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Berkeley (First Show) [2LP]

Magic Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Berkeley (First Show) finally opens the vault on the early set from the Berkeley Community Theatre in 1970, pressed as a 140-gram double LP.

Hendrix played two shows there that night, and the second has long been the better known of the pair. This first set, presented complete and in its original running order for the first time, catches Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox in the last year of his life, road-hardened and restless, mixing the hits with songs that were still taking shape.

A blistering "Fire" sets the pace before the band heads into heavier territory. "Machine Gun" is the centrepiece, a slow-building storm of feedback, sustain and martial snare that still sounds like a protest written in real time. "Hear My Train A Comin'" stretches the blues until it groans, and "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" closes the set in a haze of wah-wah and swagger.

Cox's bass gives everything a rounder, funkier floor than the original Experience line-up had, and you can hear Hendrix leaning into that weight, letting solos breathe before detonating them.

For anyone who has worn out the second show, this is the missing half of the evening, with the rough edges left in and all the more vivid for them.