Miami Pop Festival
On this date in 1968, the first Miami Pop event took place (May 18th 1968)
NOTE: The video here is one I’ve constructed using 8mm footage shot by a then 15-year-old Andy Seipos using his dad’s movie camera. I’ve added a live recording of FIRE, taken from the concert audio.
Miami Pop Festival (Hallandale, Florida’s Gulfstream Park) on May 18, 1968, the 25-year old guitarist, songwriter and visionary’s reputation preceded him.
He had already released two studio albums (1967’s Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold as Love released in 1967 in the U.K. and 1968 in the U.S.) and established himself as an unpredictable performer not to be missed when he set his guitar ablaze amidst the peace and love of the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967.
There were actually two Miami Pop Festivals that year. Hendrix joined Frank Zappa and his Mothers of Invention, Blue Cheer, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and others for the May festival promoted by Flipper trainer Ric O’Barry and future Woodstock guru Michael Lang. In late December, promoters Tom Rounds and Mel Lawrence held another fest at the same venue, enlisting artists including Procol Harum, The Turtles, Jose Feliciano, Country Joe and the Fish, and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
The May event welcomed an estimated 50,000 people, and inspired Hendrix to pen “Rainy Day, Dream Away” (included on Electric Ladyland, released in September 1968) when his planned performance on the second day was cancelled due to inclement weather. Lang, proprietor of a Miami head shop that was one of the first such establishments on the East Coast, dubbed the event as “where the seeds of Woodstock were sown.”
The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s performance at Miami Pop may not have achieved the same legendary status as Hendrix’s Woodstock gig, but it saw the Experience delivering equally searing sounds from these legendary musicians.
