4. The Jimi Hendrix ExperienceAre You Experienced
I was turned onto him by a friend of mine, Dennis Whitbread, who was a drummer for a band I was roadying for in Amsterdam. He turned me onto ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Hey Joe’ and then I saw Jimi Hendrix in London a couple of times and then at the Isle of Wight festival with Hawkwind. We were invited to play in an inflatable dome where we played for three days solid. In between I took psychedelic substances, which you couldn’t avoid as that was all there was. If you drank orange juice, you were spiked [laughs]. I had painted myself silver in a moment of madness and I knew all the security guys because they all worked at the Roundhouse and I knew all the people there, so they let me come and go wherever I wanted. So I went into the press enclosure to watch Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix and all the other bands that were playing. And Jimi Hendrix spotted me from the stage and said: "I’d like to dedicate this next song to the cat with the silver face."
