Hendrix noticed, of course, that we’d stopped filming, but finally he sort of made eye contact with me and nodded, like “roll it.” At the same time, he shut down the whole band and then you heard those famous notes, as he launched into this incredible version of “Star-Spangled Banner.” The hair came up on the back of my neck, and the back of everybody’s neck. We thought, “Holy s—!” We didn’t know what he was going to do next, but we knew it was going to be mean. And, of course, he had cranked his amps up as far as they could go.
The experience of standing in front of Hendrix–no more than six feet farther than he was from his amps–was awesome. You did not hear the sound through your ears, you heard it through your diaphragm. It vibrated. It kicked your body, it was so loud. And to watch his fingers, if you look at my coverage of it, the camera zooms in and you see just those little flesh fingers pluck that string, but when that subtle little action happened there, you’d get hit in the f—ing gut with the sound that came out of just one pluck. He’s doing no overdubs. He’s doing it live, with these amazing sound effects–bombs going off, people screaming and dying in the streets. This was his challenge to American foreign policy. Mick Jagger and I talked about it years later, and he called it the finest piece of political rock and roll to emerge from the ’60s. And even now, has anyone topped it? I don’t think they have.
