When I was approached to make a documentary about Hendrix’s short-lived Band of Gypsy’s one of the first questions I asked was ‘how much filmed material existed of the band’? I was told that the group’s concerts at the Fillmore East on New Years Eve of 1969 had been recorded on a very early video format. The video footage was poor quality black and white, but I was told had great historical value as this was a seminal performance by Hendrix, on the plus side the concert had been recorded on multi-track therefore the audio was of the highest quality. I was assured that despite the lack of footage of the band, the back-story as to how the group were formed and the significance of the Band of Gypsy’s would make for a compelling documentary. This proved to be the case and we were rewarded with the Grammy for best long form video in 1999. This clip is from the opening of the film.
